Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence

CRIMES OF PUNISHMENT CRIMES OF PUNISHMENT America’s Culture of Violence Theodore L. Dorpat Algora Publishing New Yo...

Author: Theodore L. Dorpat

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CRIMES OF PUNISHMENT

CRIMES OF PUNISHMENT America’s Culture of Violence

Theodore L. Dorpat

Algora Publishing New York

© 2007 by Algora Publishing. All Rights Reserved www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-0-87586-563-8 (trade paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-87586-564-5 (hard cover) ISBN-13: 978-0-87586-565-2 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data — Dorpat, Theodore L. Crimes of punishment : America’s culture of violence / Theodore L. Dorpat. p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87586-563-8 (trade paper: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87586-564-5 (hard cover: alk. paper) 1. Criminal psychology. 2. Punishment (Psychology) 3. Imprisonment— Psychological aspects. 4. Behavior therapy. 5. Violence—United States. I. Title. HV6080.D64 2007 364.973—dc22 2007008027

Printed in the United States

I dedicate this book to the millions of children and adults who have been mentally damaged by our culture’s violent and cruel methods — such as corporal punishment and incarceration — imposed on them supposedly to correct their wrongdoing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the following colleagues and friends who provided invaluable suggestions and constructive criticisms during the preparation of the manuscript for this book: Dr. Maxine Anderson, Carol Besheer, Joanne Dorpat Halverson, Dr. Ladson Hinton, Dr. Ken King, Dr. Mel Knight, Dr. Charles Mangham, Dr. Nels Magelssen, Dr. Stephen Rush, Jan Sauer, Morry Tolmach, and especially Dr. Michael Miller, who carefully checked many chapters. Much gratitude goes to Jean Keating for typing the manuscript, and to Sigrid Asmus for her excellent work in editing this book. Theo L. Dorpat, MD Deep gratitude is due to all of those who helped to bring this book to the public. My father would wish to thank Paul Dorpat, his youngest brother, for initiating the publishing process, his colleagues Michael Miller and Maxine Anderson for their assistance and support in this endeavor, and his editor Sigrid Asmus, who contributed far more than just her able skills. Thanks are also due to my father’s family who consistently joined him in eager discussions where he processed his theories and research; thank you to Alisha and Helen, his grown granddaughters. Joanne Dorpat Halverson

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AND CHAPTER OVERVIEW CHAPTER 1. A PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENT Emotional Effects of Punishment Anger, Hatred, Rage, and Revenge Emotional Numbness and the Loss of Empathy and Compassion How the Loss of Empathy Contributes to Violence Feelings of Shame Impair Empathic Responses to Others The Effects of Punishment on Adolf Hitler — The Inculcation of Shame Punishment Is Shaming The Folly of Shaming Sanctions Does the Shame of Punishment Inhibit Wrongdoing? How Allen Wheelis Became a “Psychological Slave” The Childhood Roots of Paranoid Psychopathology

1 7 8 11 11 14 15 16 20 21 24 25 26

CHAPTER 2. PUNISHMENT AND THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE Television Evokes Violence Vicious Cycles of Violence in Prisons Intergenerational Transmission of Emotional and Physical Abuse The Intergenerational Transmission of an Attitude of Contempt George’s Legacy to His Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren Internalized Punishment and the Cycle of Violence

29 30 30 31 33 34 36

CHAPTER 3. THE EFFECTS OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT ON CHILDREN Scientific Studies on Effects of Corporal Punishment Corporal Punishment and Physical Abuse

39 41 41

Crimes of Punishment

Depression and Suicide Assaults on Siblings and Spouses Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Delinquent Acts Corporal Punishment and the Development of Conscience Five Prospective Studies on the Effects of Corporal Punishment Corporal Punishment Tends to Retard Cognitive Development Conclusions from Scientific Studies Nonviolent Modes of Discipline Wanted — A National Ban on Corporal Punishment

43 43 43 44 45 47 47 48 49

CHAPTER 4. PUNISHMENTS AND PERILS IN TODAY’S PRISONS Care of the Mentally Ill in America’s Prisons Suicide in Jails and Prisons Mass Incarceration and Overcrowding The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Prisons Are Dangerous Places Gang Fights The Violence of Prison Rape Supermaximum-Custody Prisons Invisible Post-Incarceration Punishments

51 51 54 54 57 59 60 61 63 67

CHAPTER 5. PRISONS ARE “FACTORIES OF CRIME” “A Shocking Level of Failure” “Imprisonment is an expensive way of making bad people worse” The “futility of past punitive measures” “This is a Crime Factory” The “Failure of Today’s Correctional System” Discussion

69 70 70 72 73 73 74

CHAPTER 6. THE SCAPEGOATING OF PRISONERS Scapegoating — A Type of Projective Identification

77 77

CHAPTER 7. THE PROCESS OF CRIMINALIZATION OF PRISONERS — A RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Prison Relationships Foster the Formation of a Negative Identity and/or Negative Group Identity Psychosocial Processes of Prisonization and Criminalization Shame Inculcation in Prisoners — The Total Degradation Ceremony Concluding Comments CHAPTER 8. THE LIMITATIONS OF PRISON REFORM Prison Reforms on Norfolk Island by Captain Maconochie, 1840 Prison Reforms of Elizabeth Farnham in New York State, 1844 Prison Reforms of Howard Bilding Gill in Massachusetts, 1933 Prison Reforms of Thomas Mott Osborne in New York State, 1913

xii

85 91 93 95 96 97 97 100 100 101

Table of Contents

Prison Reforms of Thomas Murton in Arkansas, 1967 102 Prison Reforms of William R. Conte, M.D., in Washington State, 1966 103 Prison Reform and Mental Hospital Reform — A Comparison 106 Custody and Punishment Versus Psychiatry and Treatment 108 Punishment and Rehabilitation are Fundamentally Incompatible — It’s Not Possible to Reform a Person and at the Same Time Punish Him 109 CHAPTER 9. ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY The Moral Argument for Abolition Sister Helen Prejean — Spiritual Advisor to a Condemned Murderer General Deterrence and the Death Penalty Retribution — The Irrational Doctrine of Immaculate Execution Retribution The New Abolitionism — The Argument of Fairness The Education of Governor Ryan Forgiveness or Revenge? Brutalization Theory The Cost Argument Conclusion

111 112 113 114 116 117 119 121 122 124 125 125

CHAPTER 10. IS THERE A MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR PUNISHMENT? Incapacitation General Deterrence Deterrence and the Fear of Punishment Retribution The Moral Education Theory of Punishment Rehabilitation False Ideas and Misconceptions about the Corporal Punishment of Children False Idea 1 — Spanking Is More Effective than Other Types of Discipline False Idea 2 — Spanking Is Required as a Last Resort False Idea 3 — Spanking Causes No Harm False Idea 4 — Only One or Two Spankings Won’t Be Harmful False Idea 5 — Parents Can’t Stop Spanking without Training False Idea 6 — Children Who Are Not Spanked Become Spoiled or Run Wild False Idea 7 — Parents Spank Rarely or Only for Serious Misbehavior False Idea 8 — Parents Stop Spanking When the Child Becomes an Adolescent False Idea 9 — Parents Who Don’t Spank Verbally Abuse Their Children False Idea 10 — It Is Unrealistic to Expect Parents to Stop Spanking False Idea 11 — Jesus Christ Wants His Followers to Spank Their Children When They Misbehave Summary

127 128 129 130 132 134 138 139 139 139 139 140 140 141 141 142 142 142 143 143

CHAPTER 11. DOES INCARCERATION DETER THE OFFENDER FROM COMMITTING FURTHER 145 CRIMES? Theories of Deterrence 145

xiii


The Defiance Response — The Role of the Processes of Criminalization, Prisonization, and the Formation of a Negative Identity and/or Negative Group Identity 148 Effects of Incarceration 151 Loss of Freedom and Defiance 152 Conclusions 153 CHAPTER 12. NOTES ON RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGION, NONVIOLENCE, AND PUNISHMENT “Death is No Big Deal” On “Saving Souls” Through the Exploitation of the Fear of Divine Punishment The Apocalyptic Impulse America’s Most Popular Religion — The Myth of Redemptive Violence How the Myth of Redemptive Violence Is Internalized by Children

158 161 161 162

CHAPTER 13. WHY INCARCERATE WOMEN? Women in Penal Institutions Medical and Psychiatric Treatment in Women’s Prisons Do Women Offenders Need to Be in Prison?

165 168 170 172

CHAPTER 14. EMOTIONAL ABUSE Nonverbal Communication Covert and Explicit Emotional Abuse Gaslighting Case Vignette of Gaslighting Gaslighting and Interpretations of Distortions The Double Whammy — A Form of Covert Emotional Violence Case Vignette of the Double Whammy Metacommunications The Idealization of Power over People Effects of Emotional Violence Guilt and Shame as Effects of Emotional Abuse The Collective Denial of Emotional Violence Conclusion

175 176 177 178 179 180 181 183 183 184 185 187 188 190

CHAPTER 15. SOCIAL SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION AND PUNISHMENT Seven Key Characteristics of Social Systems of Domination and Punishment Concluding Comments

191 194 196

CHAPTER 16. THE SOCIOPATHOLOGY OF THE PRISON SYSTEM Hate the System, Not the Person The Prison-Industrial Complex Racism in Rural Prisons The Slavery System and the Prison System — Some Comparisons

197 198 199 200 201

xiv

155 158

Table of Contents

Conclusion

202

CHAPTER 17. CRIMES OF THE POOR AND CRIMES OF THE RICH – A COMPARISON The Unfairness of the Criminal Justice System Laws are Made for the Rich in Order to Dominate the Poor Many Large Corporations are Antisocial Systems of Domination Many Large Corporations Are Antisocial Institutions Corporate Irresponsibility – A Case Report Characteristics of APD — Summary Crimes of the Poor and Crimes of the Rich — A Comparison Public Awareness of Individual Versus Corporate Crimes

203 203 205 206 207 210 210 211 212

CHAPTER 18. A NONVIOLENT APPROACH TO COMMUNICATING AND RELATING TO OTHERS Nonviolence as a Way of Life Nonverbal Communication — Understanding and Expressing Emotions Empathy and Compassion Case Vignette Nonviolent Responses to the Violence of Emotional Abuse Clinical Vignette Two Nonviolent Strategies Vignette The Power of Nonviolent Approaches for Preventing Violence Vignette CHAPTER 19. ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NONVIOLENT APPROACHES IN GROUPS Nonviolence Versus the Myth of Redemptive Violence

215 217 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 224 227 231

CHAPTER 20. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE — A NEW FORM OF NONPUNITIVE JUSTICE Social Injustice How Restorative Justice Works Hope for the Future of Restorative Justice Approaches Concluding Remarks

233 236 236 237 239

CHAPTER 21. DOMESTIC ABUSE — A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND 241 RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACHES Mandatory Arrest and Prosecution 244 Restorative Justice Approaches to Domestic Violence 245 Empowering Women in Restorative Justice Approaches 245 CHAPTER 22. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE — A COMPARISON Retribution and Revenge Restitution or Retribution? The Healing Power of Forgiveness The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa Amy Biehl — A Case Vignette on the Healing Power of Forgiveness Who Helps the Victims of Crime?

xv

249 249 250 250 251 252 254


All Power to the State Who Is the Victim — The State or the Individual Who Is Harmed? Punishment and Pain Does Pain Repay the Offender’s Moral Debt? The Victim Offender Reconciliation Program Japan’s Effective Two-Track Judicial System The Differences Between Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice Concluding Comments BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

255 255 256 256 257 258 260 260 263 277

xvi

INTRODUCTION AND CHAPTER OVERVIEW Our society’s punitive social systems and methods for dealing with violence and misbehavior both in children and adults are actually exacerbating the maladies they are ostensibly designed to correct. Punishment does not correct or prevent violence; punishment causes violence. The corporal punishment of children and the incarceration of adults are forms of violence, and both children and adults who have been subjected to these harsh punishments tend to respond by themselves becoming more violent to others. This book presents two different kinds of arguments against the use of punishment: the moral (or ethical) approach, and the scientific approach. Scientific studies on the effects of punishment of both child and adult offenders demonstrate that punishment tends to be counterproductive. Not only does punishment fail to accomplish the goals of correcting or deterring the offender from committing further offenses, it actually tends to foster, in both groups, more antisocial behavior. My opposition to punishment is founded on my belief in nonviolence and the teachings of the great spiritual leaders who teach us, as Jesus and the Buddha did, to be nonviolent and to be compassionate to everyone. The reasons I give for abolishing the punishment of children and adults are similar to the points put forward by those who have supported a variety of nonviolent movements. More specifically, my opposition to punishment is also informed by a half-century of professional experience as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with patients with whom I have observed and studied the destructive effects of punishment.

1


With adult offenders, however, my definition of punishment does not include those criminal sanctions such as penalties, community service, parole, probation, and the like, all of which are ordinarily not harmful to the body or to the mind of the offender. Similarly, I feel that children who misbehave should be subjected to nonviolent and nonpunitive methods of discipline, including penalties, time-outs, and the like. For me, nonviolence is a way of life and a fundamental ethical value. Because nonviolence has always been an important part of my belief system and my values, it would require an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to convince me that any kind of physical or emotional punishment of humans of any age can be morally justified. Fortunately, I am not confronted with any conflict between my nonviolent values and my scientific principles, because the scientific evidence from many studies supports my values. Investigation of corporal punishment, of emotional (verbal) abuse, and of the punishment of adults by incarceration demonstrates that punishment is psychologically and emotionally damaging to humans. In 1966, the American psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger published a book, The Crime of Punishment, and in it criticized American prisons for being “factories of crime” as well as for the psychological damage they did to prisoners.1 Although his book was praised by many, his recommendations for reform of the prison system were not followed. Since Menninger’s time, the inhumane and harsh conditions in prisons in the United States have gone from bad to worse. The mass incarceration of offenders since 1970 has brought about a fivefold increase in the number of felons locked up behind metal bars. Where, before 1970, some prisons made efforts to rehabilitate prisoners, today most prisons have dropped programs for treating, educating, or rehabilitating prisoners. In the past hundred years a gradual shift has taken place from the physical punishment of adults to psychological or emotional punishment. The state no longer cuts off the limbs of offenders or scourges them with whips. However it is questionable whether this change has made punishment less harmful, if only because the length of punishment is much longer today than it was before about 1970. For example, felons convicted of murder and waiting on death row for their execution must now wait on average over ten years between the time of their sentencing and the time they are executed. Though the state no longer cuts off limbs or whips prisoners, what it is now doing to punish prisoners is even more harmful because it is so prolonged.

1 Karl Menninger, The Crime of Punishment. New York: Viking Press, 1968.

2

Introduction and Chapter Overview

This book investigates four different though interrelated social systems of punishment and domination. They include (1) corporal punishment of children, (2) incarceration of adults in jails and prisons, (3) capital punishment—the death penalty, and (4) emotional abuse (verbal abuse). In place of such punitive methods for dealing with both child and adult offenders, my book discusses the use of nonviolent and nonpunitive methods of discipline, limit setting, moral education, and rehabilitation for most offenders. The many prisoners who suffer from mental illness or drug and alcohol addiction should not be incarcerated in jails and prisons because incarceration tends to worsen their condition. Rather they should be treated in psychiatric hospitals or clinics or in other therapeutic institutions designed for their care. The present punitive system not only harms the offenders, it also neglects the basic emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of both the offenders and their victims. The state should encourage and if necessary enforce laws requiring offenders to provide restitution to the victims. This was done thousands of years ago by the Israelites and it is now an important aspect of the new and nonpunitive form of justice called Restorative Justice. In place of justice based on punishment (retributive justice), I argue for the adoption of a new form of justice, restorative justice, grounded in spiritual traditions based on a belief in the potential of human beings to forgive, to reconcile, and to heal. A final section of this book compares America’s retributive (punitive) approach with the more humane and effective restorative justice approach now being used increasingly in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other countries. Chapter Overview Chapter 1, “A Psychoanalytic Perspective on the Effects of Punishment,” examines the effects of punishment on children and adults from a clinician’s perspective, as informed by psychiatric and psychoanalytic knowledge. This chapter includes an original and unique discussion that places emphasis on the destructive effects of the inculcation of shame by punishment. Chapter 2, “Punishment and the Cycle of Violence,” argues that punishment is a concealed form of violence. The punishment of both children and adults tends to escalate and provoke more violence. Violence begets violence! Chapter 3, “The Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children,” discusses the approximately one hundred scientific publications showing that corporal punishment of children has long-term destructive effects. 3


Chapter 4, “Punishments and Perils in Today’s Prisons,” reviews the current major stressors in prisons. These include the failure to treat the many prisoners with mental illness; overcrowding; the psychiatric casualties of supermaximumcustody prisons; rape, gang violence, and murder; and inadequate medical care. Chapter 5, “Prisons Are Factories of Crime,” argues that the stressful, scapegoating effects of prison life cause rather than prevent criminality. Chapter 6, “The Scapegoating of Prisoners,” examines the unconscious motives people have for scapegoating prisoners and how the scapegoating is done. Prisons are harmful systems of control and punishment where domination is attained through the scapegoating of the poor, the uneducated, and the nonwhite. Another covert goal of this system is to enhance the power and the wealth of the very rich. Chapter 7, “The Process of Criminalizing Prisoners—A Relational Perspective,” discusses how the relations between prisoners, as well as between prisoners and guards, promote the psychosocial processes of criminalization, prisonization, the formation of a negative personal identity, and the formation of a negative group identity in prisoners. Chapter 8, “The Limitations of Prison Reform,” provides narratives about six prison reformers and concludes that their reforms did not endure because they were incompatible with the laws and traditions governing America’s criminal justice system, which places overriding emphasis on punishment. We are not going to effectively treat, educate, or rehabilitate prisoners until we stop punishing them. Chapter 9, “Arguments for and against the Death Penalty,” deals with arguments for the death penalty, which come from theories of deterrence and retribution. I argue that retribution is disguised revenge. Those opposed to the death penalty believe that killing by the state is immoral, and point to the fact that the workings of the criminal justice system are unfair to the poor, the uneducated, and to nonwhites. Brutalization theory holds that the sight or news of an execution has a brutalizing effect on others, and incites some individuals to commit violent acts, including murder. Chapter 10, “Is There a Moral Justification for Punishment?” sets out the legal theories, such as deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, and incapacitation, which are used to justify state punishment. I conclude that none of these theories has much validity and that there is no moral justification for punishment. Chapter 11, “Does Incarceration Deter the Offender from Committing Further Crimes?” discusses deterrence theory, which holds that the punishment of incarceration deters offenders from future criminal activity. I argue that the pun4

Introduction and Chapter Overview

ishment of incarceration tends to evoke a defiant response and increased criminal activity. Chapter 12, “Notes on Relationships Between Religion, Nonviolence, and Punishment,” compares and contrasts the nonviolent and nonpunitive approach of the early Christians with the punitive approach of fundamentalist protestant groups in the United States today. Chapter 13, “Why Incarcerate Women?” supports the view that the majority of women who are incarcerated should not be in prison because they are not guilty of violent crimes. Most women prisoners have been convicted of drug and property offenses. The incarceration of women is destructive not only to the women prisoners, but also to their families, especially their children. Chapter 14, “Emotional Abuse,” discusses gaslighting, the double whammy, and other forms of covert emotional abuse. This chapter argues that emotional abuse is the most devastating cause of human misery and psychiatric illness. The collective denial of emotional abuse on the part of both perpetrators and victims is explained. Chapter 15, “Social Systems of Domination and Punishment,” covers the four systems presented in this volume. These have seven defining characteristics: (1) they are culturally engendered; (2) they punish, control, and dominate their victims; (3) they inculcate shame and other disturbing emotions; (4) they cause temporary or permanent psychological damage, which ranges from psychic trauma to soul murder of their victims; (5) many people, including both the perpetrators and victims, share a collective denial of the harm done to the victims; (6) most Americans are unaware of these systems or their harmful effects; the collective denial of the harm done is one reason for the widespread lack of awareness, but not the only one; (7) the moral responsibility for harmful practices resides mainly in the systems rather than in the individuals who work in or for these harmful systems. Chapter 16, “The Sociopathology of the Prison System,” discusses the current prison-industrial complex and compares the present prison system with the slavery system as it existed in the US prior to 1860. Chapter 17, “Crimes of the Poor and Crimes of the Rich—A Comparison,” responds to the question: Why are the poor, the uneducated, and the minority races usually punished harshly for their crimes, while at the same time crimes committed by the very rich (and by the large corporations they manage) often elude punishment? The final five chapters present nonviolent and nonpunitive alternatives to today’s harmful systems of punishment and domination. 5


Chapter 18, “A Nonviolent Approach to Communicating with and Relating to Others,” and Chapter 19, “On the Effectiveness of Nonviolent Approaches in Groups,” provide a description of nonviolent interpersonal and group relations, and of nonviolent communication. The moral principles underlying nonviolent approaches to groups and to interpersonal (one-to-one) relations are the same: (1) a prohibition against any kind of physical or emotional abuse or punishment, and (2) the maintenance of an attitude of compassion and empathy for everyone. Empathy is a respectful understanding of what the other is experiencing. Chapter 20, “Restorative Justice—A New Form of Nonpunitive Justice,” provides an introduction to the field of restorative justice and explains how it fosters healing for both offenders and their victims. Chapter 21, “Domestic Abuse—A Comparison Between the Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice Approaches,” argues that the present punitive system deprives the victims of domestic abuse of any power and often provokes more violence on the part of the abuser. Restorative justice methods such as Family Group Conferences are recommended as a substitute for the punitive measures such as incarceration that are used by the traditional criminal justice system. Chapter 22, “Restorative Justice and Retributive Justice—A Comparison,” investigates scientific studies that have compared the restorative justice approach with the punitive approach characteristic of the traditional criminal justice system. These studies have reached the following conclusions: Restorative-justice approaches deter crime better than punitive approaches; restorative justice incapacitates criminals better than the traditional punitive approaches; restorative justice approaches rehabilitate criminals better than the punitive approaches; and restorative-justice practices cost less and are more cost-effective than those of the current criminal justice system. Retributive justice systems tend to cause more violence; restorative justice systems support healing for both victims and offenders.

6

CHAPTER 1. A PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE PUNISHMENT

ON THE

EFFECTS

OF

This chapter examines, from a clinician’s perspective and informed by psychiatric and psychoanalytic knowledge, the effects of punishment on children and adults. I am unable to recall any human being, past or present, whom I have known or read about who has benefited in any way from punishment, either as a child or an adult. There are at least a hundred published scientific studies describing the effect of corporal punishment on children. Not one presents evidence of punishment producing a positive, constructive result. All testify to the psychological harm done to child victims of corporal punishment. Once in a great while, one reads about some prison inmate who has seen the light and reformed. A closer look at such rare exceptions indicates they have changed despite and not because of what the prisons do to them. The overwhelming majority of prisoners are damaged by their prison experience and are psychologically worse off when they are released from prison than when they were first imprisoned. Punishment is based on the assumptions that people, from childhood to adulthood, commit offenses because they are bad, and that in order to rectify the situation they need to repent. This rectification is to be carried out by punishing them and thereby making them suffer enough to see the error of their ways. Then they will repent and change for the better.1

1 Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2002, p. 156.

7


In practice, however, punishment, rather than bringing about repentance and constructive change, is far more likely to generate shame, resentment, fear, and hostility. These emotions reinforce the resistance of the one punished to adopting the behaviors the punisher is seeking. Moreover, these negative and painful feeling states tend to bring about a repetition of the original offense or some other antisocial behavior. Punishment damages the relationship between the one who punishes and the person punished; also, punishment usually inculcates shame and low selfesteem. Punishment shifts the victim’s attention from the intrinsic value of an action to external circumstances. Blaming and punishing the victim fail to contribute to the motivations one would like to inspire in others.2 When individuals submit to doing something solely for the purpose of avoiding punishment, their attention is distracted from the value of what they are doing. Instead, these individuals focus upon the possibly painful consequences of what might happen if one fails to take that action. These individuals see themselves as merely complying out of fear of punishment. Any joy or other meaning in the activity is erased by the fear of being punished. If an individual’s performance is prompted by fear of punishment, the job gets done, but his morale suffers; sooner or later, productivity will decrease.3 Punishment reinforces and supports the development in children and adults of an immature conscience founded on the fear of punishment. Such individuals regulate their behavior not by an internalized moral regulatory system that informs them about the differences between what is right and what is wrong, but rather by seeking to behave in a manner that avoids punishment.

EMOTIONAL EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENT The American historian Dr. Philip Greven emphasizes how the pain of corporal punishment of children generates fear and that the “fear usually gives way to anger and hate.”4 What Dr. Greven writes is correct except that he fails to mention the other painful emotions that are evoked in the victim of corporal punishment. They include, in addition to the fear Greven noted, shame, anxiety, and helplessness. These feeling states are usually followed by anger and rage. The emotions of sadness, depression, and desire for revenge often take center stage later.

2 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 163. 3 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 158. 4 Philip Greven, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. New York: Vintage, 1992, p. 123.

8

Chapter 1. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on the Effects of Punishment

Many psychic trauma experts, including myself, believe that the induction of shame is often more important in bringing about the long-term, psychologically damaging effects of corporal punishment and incarceration than are other painful affects such as anxiety, fear, and helplessness. When shaming is done repeatedly, the victim may develop enduring and disabling psychiatric illnesses. Because of the central importance of shame and shaming in punishment, and because so little has been written about this, I am devoting a separate section of this chapter to that topic. Although the physical pain inflicted by spanking may trigger emotions such as fear and anger, I believe that the disruption of the child’s attachment to the parent caused by the spanking is the more enduring and critical proximal cause for the emergence of disturbing emotions such as shame and other painful emotions (e.g., anxiety, fear, helplessness). The child needs the parent as his protector, teacher, and caretaker, and for meeting his needs for security and love. The overwhelmingly disturbing emotions engendered by corporal punishment are responses to the disruption of the parent–child attachment and to the consequent threats to the child’s well-being and survival. The violence of corporal punishment threatens the bond between child and parent and commonly leads the child to feel unloved, abandoned, betrayed, ashamed, rejected, and unfairly treated. It is not true that childhood memories of stressful corporal punishment are entirely repressed and inaccessible to consciousness. Sometimes the opposite is true — certain aspects of the traumatic memory remain vivid in the victim’s memory. This is so for my memory of a beating I received in the fourth grade from a teacher, Mr. Thompson. He caught me carrying matches. I was not aware of breaking any rule or law — the matches were in a small metal container. Hence I believed at the time and still do that Thompson was being unfair and cruel. He used a long yardstick with a metal tip to beat me. What I recall most was the feeling of shame I experienced when I had to bend over in front of my classmates for the whipping. When I remember the above scene, I feel the same anger and shame I felt over seventy years ago when I was whipped. I would like to forget the beating I received from Mr. Thompson, but I have not been able to erase it from my mind. Some memories of childhood stressors are repressed and thus not accessible to consciousness. Others, like the beating I received from Mr. Thompson, are unforgettable. Psychic trauma is the individual’s psychological and physiological response to threats of survival and/or threats to the parent–child attachment bond. The experiential manifestations of these threats are overwhelmingly disturbing emo9


tions such as shame, helplessness, fear, and rage. Emotional disturbances are the inevitable and sometimes enduring effects of different kinds of abuse, including sexual, physical, and emotional (verbal) abuse, corporal punishment, and the punishment of incarceration. What is the nature of the injury and damage done in corporal punishment? A misconception some people hold is that the critical element is the immediate physical pain from the punishment that is the cause of the psychic damage. However, there is now a consensus among experts in the field of psychic trauma that the physical pain inflicted by corporal punishment is not usually the important causal factor in bringing about psychic damage. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the emotional (psychological) damage following corporal punishment or other kinds of abuse (e.g., sexual) outweighs the physical damage. Consider a situation where a parent administers a mild to moderately severe spanking. Unless the number of whacks is high (e.g., over a dozen), the only physical changes are some mild, temporary bruises and some reddening of the afflicted area of skin. Though severe physical abuse can cause serious, even fatal, injuries to children, in the vast majority of corporal punishment cases lasting physical injuries do not occur. In most cases the physical pain does not last much longer than the beating and the other physical effects in such cases will disappear in a short time. On the other hand, the emotional and psychic effects such as shame, fear, mistrust, rage, and the like can and too frequently do last a lifetime. Child victims of corporal punishment suffer psychological damage even though there may not be any explicit emotional (verbal) abuse accompanying the spanking. This is explained by the fact that what produces the psychological damage in spanking or other types of corporal punishment is not so much the physical pain as the meaning the child attaches to the spanking. Of course, the meanings children attach to the punishment vary from child to child, depending on the age of the child and the quality of the relationship with the punishing adult. What follows are some common meanings the child may construct: “My parent does not love me”; “My parent is cruel”; “My parent hates me”; “I’ve been punished unfairly”; “I’ve been betrayed”; “I can’t trust my parents.” The punished child may feel unloved, unprotected, rejected, betrayed, humiliated, shamed, deeply disappointed, scapegoated, and the like. The above feeling states are the products of the child’s unconscious meaning-analysis of the corporal punishment. What the parents say to the misbehaving child before, during, and immediately following spanking the child influences the child’s construction of what the punishment means. Punished children often internalize their parents’ nega10


tive and hostile communications to them and begin to look upon themselves as shameful, defective, sinful, unlovable, hopeless, and the like. For example, if the parent says they are bad, then the child may begin thinking of himself or herself as bad.

ANGER, HATRED, RAGE, AND REVENGE As I mentioned earlier, feelings of anger, hate, rage, and revenge usually emerge either during the corporal punishment or soon afterward. The Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller recognizes the universality of anger as a response to corporal punishment and at the same time she appreciates how frequently such forbidden feelings are repressed. Writing about those persons who were beaten as children, Dr. Miller states: It is inconceivable that they were able to express and develop their true feelings as children, for anger and helpless rage, which they were forbidden to display, would have been among those feelings — particularly if these children were beaten, humiliated, lied to, and deceived. What becomes of this forbidden and therefore unexpressed anger? Unfortunately, it does not disappear, but is transformed with time into a more or less conscious hatred directed against either the self or substitute persons, a hatred that will seek to discharge itself in various ways permissible and suitable for an adult.5

EMOTIONAL NUMBNESS AND THE LOSS OF EMPATHY AND COMPASSION One of the most severe and destructive long-term effects of punishment of both children and adults is the impairment or loss of the victim’s capacities for empathy and compassion for others. This inhibition is often linked with a generalized emotional numbness. The capacity to temporarily identify with others (empathy), to understand their experiences and their feelings, is one of the most important and emotionally rewarding human abilities for understanding and relating to others. Compassion and empathy are necessary for being able to relate to others in a loving, constructive, and nonviolent way, and these qualities are indispensable for those who wish to be effective healers in the mental health professions. Emotional numbness and the suppression of empathy and compassion are some of the long-lasting symptoms of Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, as well as other psychiatric disorders caused by punishment and other kinds of psychic trauma. In my book on Adolf Hitler, I described his emotional numbness as one of the many symptoms he had as a result of his chronic childhood 5 Alice Miller, For Your Own Good. 3rd edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1990, p. 61.

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trauma as well as the chronic combat trauma he sustained while serving in the German army on the Western Front in World War I. His chronic childhood trauma included the verbal abuse and frequent, severe beatings he received from his father.6 The prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan wrote about the way constant shaming leads to a deadening of feeling and an absence of feeling.7 Over fifty years before psychiatrists and psychoanalysts were studying the numbness symptoms in patients with Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, in addition to other psychiatric disorders caused by psychic trauma, the attorney Clarence Darrow in 1902 described the brutalizing and numbing responses in prisoners as well as the guards and others who work within the criminal justice system. Clarence Darrow wrote: “But the evil of judgment and punishment does not end with the unfortunate victim. It brutalizes and makes inhuman all who are touched with its power. Under the influence of punishments jailers, policemen, sheriffs, detectives and all who deal with prisons are brutalized and hardened. . . . To witness the constant suffering and indignities of prison life is to destroy the finer sensibilities of the soul.”8 Something similar to what Darrow describes in people who work within the criminal justice system also occurs in some physicians and nurses who must encounter many times every day suffering, death, and the ravages of disease in the patients they care for. A study carried out over fifty years ago demonstrated the numbing effect of stress on medical students. The researchers measured the capacity of the medical students to have empathy for others just prior to beginning their first year of medical school, and then four years later at the time of their graduation.9 The researchers found a statistically significant difference between the higher empathy scores at the beginning of medical school and the lower empathy scores at the end of their training. In the course of their training, the medical students had lost some of their capacities for empathy. One plausible explanation for this loss of empathy, I believe, is the gradual development of a defensive emotional numbness to defend against the psychic pain of repeatedly witnessing 6 Theo. L. Dorpat, Wounded Monster Monster: Hitler’s Path from Trauma to Malevolence. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002. 7 James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. New York: Vintage, 1997, p. 47. 8 Clarence S. Darrow, Resist Not Evil. Port Townsend WA: Breakout Productions, 1994, p. 158; originally published in 1902. Italics are mine. Clarence Darrow is best known for defending the right of schools to teach evolution in the Scopes Trial of 1925. Resist Not Evil presents a robust case for abolishing the criminal justice system. 9 I first learned about this research in the 1950s. Although I have been unable to locate a citation for the article, the findings of this study remain fresh and vivid in my mind, probably because they are so congruent with my own experience in medical school.

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human suffering, severe illness, and death. My hypothesis that the decrease in empathy is a defensive response stems from my own medical school experience, my talks with other physicians, and my psychoanalytic treatment of over thirty physicians. Although the explanation about the defensive motive underlying emotional numbness is true, I believe there is another explanation, a relational factor that is conjoined with the defensive need to suppress mental pain. The second and relational explanation for the decline of empathy in medical-school students derives from the nature of the medial students’ relationships with each other, with their teachers, and with their patients. In the first year of medical school, the student’s first “patient” is a corpse in the anatomy class. Medical school students learn human anatomy through their careful dissection of a dead body. Medical students are enjoined and pressured by their instructors to be absolutely detached and objective about the corpse. They should never speak of “it” as if “it” had ever been a person, a living human being. Unfortunately, for many students this supposedly scientific and objective relation to the corpse becomes a model for future physician–patient relations! For these medical students and their mentors, scientism rules the day in regard to the relationships young doctors-to-be have with sick people, with suffering, and with death. By being cold, detached, and impersonal in the workplace, many medical students, along with some of the older doctors who teach and supervise them and their treatment of patients, believe — mistakenly I now think — that they are being scientific. The emotional numbness and impersonal attitude of some physicians toward their patients tends to be context-dependent. Outside of clinical (work) situations, doctors are probably as emotionally expressive as other people. Similarly, the affectless and impersonal way in which prison guards communicate with prisoners is nearly always a learned and context-dependent response. Guards are not as impersonal or emotionally detached when they communicate with others in nonwork situations. For more about the affectless, impersonal communications of prison guards while they are interacting with prisoners, see Chapter 7. The temporary and context-dependent detachment and affectless communication of physicians and prison guards should be distinguished from the more generalized loss of empathy and emotional deadness in individuals who have been traumatized by the punishment of incarceration, by corporal punishment, or through other traumas. Individuals who have been traumatized by repeated corporal punishment or by lengthy incarceration often seem emotionally cold to

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outside observers. Dante was correct when he said that the lowest circle of hell was a region not of flames, but of ice, absolute coldness.10 The American historian Dr. Philip Greven concludes that “most people hurt in childhood by their parents develop immunities that often persist for lifetime. Much pain is inflicted in the name of morality and conscience when empathy, compassion and respect for others are absent.”11

HOW THE LOSS OF EMPATHY CONTRIBUTES TO VIOLENCE The loss or impairment of empathy caused by the punishment of offenders (e.g., the corporal punishment of children and the incarceration of adults) is an important though indirect cause of their later becoming violent. In what follows I explain how this happens. Repeated experiences of punishment and other types of chronic trauma may cause dyscontrol (loss of control over hostile impulses). Abundant research demonstrates that most crimes result from lack of inner controls; violence erupts when impaired self-control brings about dyscontrol over antisocial desires and destructive impulses. Dyscontrol over their destructive impulses is what distinguishes those who act out in violent ways from those who do not act out. There are important causal relationships between the loss of empathy and the formation of dyscontrol resulting in violence.12 On the basis of his study of Nazi physicians, the American psychiatrist Dr. Robert Lifton concluded that it is virtually impossible to kill another human being without first becoming psychically numb.13 Guilt and empathy for others are two of the key emotional forces that regulate an individual’s self-control over aggression; they are a counterforce that restrains violent impulses. The loss or suspension of guilt and empathy lead to dyscontrol and the acting out of destructive impulses. All humans have, at times, hateful desires, but only those without internal controls, such as empathy and guilt, actually act upon those desires. A common and important cause of dyscontrol in criminals is their lack of empathy for their victims and/or their lack of guilt over aggressive actions. I do not mean to imply that the lack of empathy and guilt are the only causes for the acting out of violent impulses. What I am saying is that the lack of empathy and guilt are important causes in individuals who have been traumatized by being punished or in other ways. 10 Gilligan, Violence, p. 48. 11 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 127. 12 For more on the relationships between the loss of empathy, dyscontrol, and violence, see my book on Adolf Hitler, Wounded Monster, pp. 131–136. 13 Robert Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

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FEELINGS OF SHAME IMPAIR EMPATHIC RESPONSES TO OTHERS Recent research sheds some light on the question of why and how individuals who have been traumatized by the shaming of punishment tend to have diminished empathy for others. Drs. J. Tangney and R. Dearing discuss investigations that demonstrate that shame-prone individuals tend to be less able to empathize with others; in contrast, guilt-prone people are better able to empathize with others.14 Drs.. Tangney and Dearing adduce evidence supporting the hypothesis that “feelings of shame actually interfere with other-oriented empathic responses.”15 Dr. Gilligan wrote, “The more harshly we punish criminals or children, the more violent they become; the punishment increases their feelings of shame and simultaneously decreases their capacities for love for others, and of guilt toward others.”16 The American writer Daniel Goleman states that repeated physical abuse “warps a child’s natural bent toward empathy.”17 He discusses research conducted in a daycare center of nine toddlers, ages one to three, who had been repeatedly physically abused by their parents. Then he compared the abused group with a similar group of toddlers who had not been abused. The responses of the two groups to the crying of other children was examined and compared. The non-abused toddlers reacted with concern, sadness, empathy, or they did not respond to cries. Not one of the abused toddlers responded with empathy; instead they reacted to the crying children with expressions of fear, anger, or even of hitting the disturbed child. Compared with toddlers who had not been physically abused by their parents, abused toddlers showed much less empathy and compassion for others toddlers who were crying. The physically abused toddlers treated their peers as they themselves had been treated, demonstrating, I believe, an early type of identification with the aggressor. These children not only identified with their aggressors (their parent) as the perpetrators of physical abuse, but they also identified with their aggressors’ coldness, lack of empathy, and indifference to the suffering of their children. The shame inculcated by repeated punishment of both children and adults has marked damaging effects on the victim’s capacities for having human emotions (other than shame and rage) and especially guilt and empathy. 14 June Price Tangney and Rhonda L. Dearing, Shame and Guilt. New York: Guilford Press, 2004, p. 3. 15 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 89. 16 Gilligan, Violence, p. 113. 17 Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books, 1995, p. 137.

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In contrast to the prevailing punitive and shame-inducing approaches of our social systems for punishment (i.e., the criminal justice system and the corporal punishment of children), the more humane nonpunitive and nonviolent approaches such as those of the Restorative Justice movement support the development of empathy and compassion for others. These constructive changes in turn facilitate the development of a more mature conscience, one capable of restraining violent and antisocial impulses.

THE EFFECTS SHAME

OF

PUNISHMENT

ON

ADOLF HITLER — THE INCULCATION

OF

In my book on Adolf Hitler and his psychopathology, I examined the role of shame and shame avoidance in his life from a relational and developmental perspective.18 The inculcation of shame by Hitler’s physically and emotionally abusive father played a central role in his pathological personality development and in the formation of his lifelong psychiatric disorders. His propensity for outbursts of rage was triggered by shame. His grandiosity and other defenses were mainly founded on a need to avoid shame feelings. Sexualized shame played an important causal role in his sadomasochistic sexual perversions (i.e., sexualized beatings and undinism — having women urinate on his face). An admixture of shame, low self-esteem, and depression was a crucial dynamic in his two suicide attempts and his completed suicide in 1945 just prior to the end of World War II. In my opinion, Hitler’s malevolence and problems with shame derived from two major causes. They were, first, the chronic physical and emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic and brutal father who beat him often and severely. A second cause was the chronic combat trauma he suffered as a result of his extraordinarily long four years of service as an infantry soldier in World War I. In October 1918, while serving on the Western Front, he suffered a psychiatric breakdown and was hospitalized at Pasewalk Hospital, where he received psychiatric treatment. These two chronic traumas caused lifelong psychiatric disorders — the chronic childhood trauma caused his Borderline Personality Disorder and his chronic combat trauma caused his Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. The most destructive and persistently toxic elements of the trauma Adolf suffered at the hands of his punitive father were the shame and humiliation he endured. The emotional abuse — soul-murder, if you will — committed against young Adolf accounted for much more emotional distress than the physical pain 18 Dorpat, Wounded Monster.

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he received from his father’s frequent beatings. The core of Hitler’s chronic childhood trauma was his father’s inculcation of feelings of shame, low self-esteem, self-contempt, and self-hatred. These painful feelings later provided the primary content of his frequent periods of depression. Like other patients with Borderline Personality Disorder, he had many splits in the self (or ego). To my mind the most important one was a split between two complexes — one I shall call grandiosity and the other I’ll call shame-depression. When he was in a state of grandiosity, he denied anything about himself that was less than great. Contrariwise, when he was in the state of shame and depression, he denied anything about himself that was good. In the state of shame and depression, he would call himself a “shit-head.” From childhood until his death, he repeatedly vacillated between these widely disparate mental states. Shifts between the grandiose state and the shame-depressive state were strongly impacted by Hitler’s relationships with others. The Führer was more grandiose in the early stages of World War II when the German armies won victory after victory and his popularity with Germans was at an all-time high. When, in the second half of the war, the German military forces were repeatedly defeated and Germans no longer idolized their Führer, he became increasingly ashamed and depressed. Almost the entire edifice of Hitler’s lifelong psychopathology may be understood as the structures formed to defend against shame, to compensate for feelings of shame, and his rageful desire for destroying those he deemed responsible for his suffering and shame. His grandiosity was developed early in his life as an attempt to defensively compensate for feelings of shame and helplessness engendered by his chronic childhood and combat traumas. Feelings of shame frequently triggered rage and hatred in Adolf Hitler as they also do in others who suffer from some narcissistic injury. For the young Adolf, the beatings and induced shame were grievous injuries to the self. Heinz Kohut, the American psychoanalyst, was one of the first to explain the relationship between injuries to the self, shame, and rage.19 Kohut’s description of narcissistic rage aptly applies to Adolf Hitler throughout his life. Kohut viewed narcissistic rage as an expectable response to some narcissistic injury. According to Kohut, the specific property of narcissistic rage is “the need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by whatever means, and a deeply

19 Heinz Kohut, “Thoughts on Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage,” pp. 615–658. In: Paul H. Ornstein, ed., The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–1978, vol. 2. New York: International Universities Press, 1978, pp. 637–638.

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anchored, unrelenting compulsion in the pursuit of these aims, which gives no rest to those who have suffered narcissistic injury.”20 The following vignette illustrates several ways Hitler typically warded off the emotions of shame. This story also discusses the relationship between Hitler’s shame-processes and some of the major character traits which had gradually been constructed in his formative years to compensate for feelings of shame and/or to defend against shame emotions. One day during World War II, when the Führer was humming a tune from an opera in the company of his secretaries, one of them gently corrected him by telling him he was mistaken in one musical note. Hitler flew into a rage, gesticulating wildly and berating the crying and cringing woman. He stoutly maintained he had not made a mistake. Gathering more conviction as he went along, he loudly proclaimed that it was the composer who had made the mistake and that he (the Führer) was humming the tune in the right way. First, Hitler became enraged. There are many reports of his rage attacks in contexts where one would instead have expected him to experience shame. His demonstration of rage in the above vignette is typical of the way he dealt with being corrected or criticized. Second, in the incident mentioned above, he denied he had made a mistake; in this instance as in many others, his denial involved a temporary impairment of his ability to perceive reality in a realistic way. This defensive denial sometimes had serious consequences as when Hitler denied the superior military capacities of his major adversaries, the Americans and the Russians. The third characterological way Hitler defended against shame emotions was to blame someone else. In the above vignette, he even blamed the composer of the opera for using the wrong note! This story also illustrates Hitler’s irrational thinking at times when he was unconsciously trying to avoid feeling ashamed. Blaming the composer for his (Hitler’s) own mistake was patently absurd. Hitler’s fourth typical mode of defense against shame emotion was grandiosity. The idea that he alone hummed the correct note while the composer was in error was grandiose in the extreme. Untrained in music, Hitler had at best a modest musical talent; he claimed extraordinary musical abilities that he did not in fact possess. A fifth way Hitler commonly avoided shame was to attack and shame others, such as when he attacked the secretary for correcting him. His rage and contemptuous attack on the poor woman embarrassed her and made her break down into tears.

20 Kohut, “Thoughts on Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage,” pp. 637–638.

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One important way Hitler attempted to resolve the traumas suffered from deeply humiliating experiences with his father was by what is often called in psychoanalysis an “identification with the aggressor.” In this hostile identification with his father, Hitler became the one who shamed or in other ways traumatized others. His propensity for shaming others became more flagrant and starkly cruel after World War I. Persons such as Albert Speer, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and others who knew Hitler well after that time indicate that the trait of shaming others through communications of contempt and ridicule became more intense and frequent over time. Through such hostile communications, as well as in other ways, Hitler evoked feelings of worthlessness, helplessness — and, above all, shame — in others. Adolf Hitler was easily embarrassed and shame-prone. He could not and would not tolerate anyone laughing at him or criticizing him in any way. His vulnerability to shame emotions is illustrated in the next vignette. Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer, relates an incident when Hitler was invited to a New Year’s party at Hoffmann’s home. The ladies who were present, none of whom had previously met Hitler, eagerly awaited his arrival. They were not disappointed; Hitler looked very smart in his cutaway coat. One attractive young lady managed to maneuver him under the mistletoe and kissed him. Hoffmann states, “I shall never forget the look of astonishment and horror on Hitler’s face! The wicked siren, too, felt that she had committed a faux pas, and an uncomfortable silence reigned. Bewildered and helpless as a child, Hitler stood there, biting his lip in an effort to master his anger and embarrassment. The atmosphere, which after his arrival had shown a tendency to become more formal, now became almost glacial.”21 Hoffmann tried to laugh it off, but Hitler was not amused. The Führer bade everyone a polite, but cool, farewell and hurriedly left. Hitler was surprised and humiliated at being kissed under the mistletoe, partly because it meant for him that he was not in complete control of the situation. Being in absolute control of social situations served as a defense against anyone doing anything that would be hurtful to him, especially anything causing him to feel shame. In nearly all social situations, whether involving one person or masses of people, Hitler set the agenda; others were more or less compelled to play the parts he assigned to them. Most young men at a New Year’s party would have laughed when kissed under the mistletoe and treated the occasion as a time for play or humor. The mistletoe incident also illustrates Hitler’s lack of a sense of humor and playfulness. Nearly everyone who knew and wrote about Hitler 21 John Toland, Adolf Hitler. New York: Doubleday, 1976, p. 215.

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tells of his intolerance of anyone criticizing, teasing, laughing at, or playing a joke on him. He demanded respect, especially in any group gathering.

PUNISHMENT IS SHAMING A major point made in this section is that some of the more destructive effects of punishment come from the shaming of the person punished. Punishment is shaming. The central role of the inculcation of shame in the psychogenesis of various psychiatric disorders resulting from punishment and other types of trauma has only recently been given adequate attention in the scientific literature.22 Several different aspects of spanking are responsible for the evocation of shame in the child, the victim. First and often foremost, the sense of being unloved can trigger shame response. The developmentally earliest kind of shame response occurs in infants whose caretakers fail to respond to them. For example, if a seven-month-old baby smiles and makes eye contact with the mother and the mother does not smile or make eye contact in response, the baby will exhibit the important physical signs of shame: the baby’s head drops, eye contact is avoided, the baby’s body goes limp, the facial expression is blank or unhappy. For adults as well as children, rejection is a powerful trigger of the shame response, as Dr. Herbert Thomas has shown.23 The induction of shame at the time of corporal punishment may also be enhanced by the parent’s verbal abuse. The case of Adolf Hitler illustrates this point. His father would shame and humiliate him with intense verbal abuse at the same time that he was beating him with a paddle. A third source of shame in spanking is the embarrassment of being spanked on the buttocks, an erogenous zone. This, of course, is especially intense if the child is compelled to remove his clothes and expose his naked bottom. Being slapped in the face also tends to evoke intense feelings of shame; corporal punishment of adolescents most often takes the form of a slap on the face. “Loss of face” is a term used in Japan and China for shame. According to Yale Law Professor Dan M. Kahan, punishment is not, as most people who write about punishment believe, mainly about retribution, deterrence, or crime prevention, but about shaming.24 Professor Kahan appreciates more than do others who write about prisons the universal prevalence of and 22 For more about the significance of shame inculcation in the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders, see the writings of the psychoanalysts Theo. Dorpat, Carl Goldberg, and Leonard Shengold, specifically: Dorpat, Wounded Monster; Goldberg, Speaking With the Devil: Exploring Senseless Acts of Violence, New York: Penguin, 1997; and Shengold, Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. 23 Herbert E. Thomas, The Shame Response to Rejection. Sewickley, PA: Albanel Publishers, 1987. 24 Dan M. Kahan, “The Anatomy of Disgust in Criminal Law.” Michigan Law Review 96:1621–1657, 1998.

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psychological power to be gained in shaming prisoners during incarceration. Professor Kahan writes that “By stripping individuals of liberty — a venerated symbol of individual worth in our culture — and by inflicting countless other indignities — from exposure to the view of others when urinating and defecating to rape at the hand of other inmates — prison unambiguously marks the lowness of those we consign to it.”25 In Kahan’s opinion, criminal sanctions, including incarceration, should be degrading (shaming) and they should express disgust with the offender. He asserts that offenders should be subjected to “intrinsically repulsive,” “degrading,” or at least “effectively stigmatizing” punishments. In Kahan’s view, milder types of criminal sanctions such as fines and community service are not — in contrast to incarceration — sufficiently debasing (shaming).26 Though I find Professor Kahan’s recommendations for more intentional shaming of offenders both morally repugnant and inhumane, he has provided insightful statements about the critical role of shaming in punishment. In my opinion, it is the chronic shaming, above all else, that accounts for much of the terrible destruction done to the minds and spirits of most prisoners who are incarcerated. Also, it is my view that shaming, more than the other painful emotions and the physical pain induced by spankings and beatings, is what brings about the long-term damaging effects of corporal punishment. The noted American criminologist Dr. Michael Tonry disagrees with Kahan’s proposals for extending and legitimating the role of shaming in criminal sanctions.27

THE FOLLY OF SHAMING SANCTIONS A recent trend in the US Criminal Justice System is the use of deliberate “shaming” sentences — sanctions purposefully designed to inculcate feelings of shame and humiliation to the offender. Some judges sentence offenders to walk around in public carrying signs detailing their crimes, to place signs on their front yards warning others of their vices, and to display “drunk driver” bumper stickers on their cars. Judges who order the public shaming and humiliation of offenders are only making matters worse, both for society and the offenders — 25 Kahan, The anatomy of disgust, p. 1642. 26 Kahan, The anatomy of disgust, p. 1642. 27 Michael Tonry, Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 163. Other criminologists who oppose Professor Kahan’s proposals for more explicitly shaming punishments include: D. R. Karp, “The Judicial and Judicious Use of Shame Penalties,” Crime and Delinquency 44:277–294, 1998; T. M. Mossaro, “The Meanings of Shame: Implications for Legal Reform,” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 3:645–704, 1997; and J. Vagg, “Delinquency and Shame,” British Journal of Criminology 38:247– 264, 1998.

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who are almost always enraged by being publicly shamed. Punishments that include public shaming tend to foster more violence rather than prevent violence. According to the psychologists Tangney and Dearing, “there is good reason to expect shaming sentences, aimed at inducing feelings of humiliation and shame about the self, to be disintegrative not reintegrative — stigmatizing, isolating, excluding the offender, and ultimately increasing the likelihood of reoffense.”28 One can find many examples of public shaming in the criminal justice system. Trial attorneys are adept at intimidating, humiliating, and shaming witnesses in order to disorganize them. The shaming of both plaintiffs and defendants is commonplace in the Judge Judy television show. In a show I watched in 2004, she scolded, berated, insulted, and denigrated a majority of the people who appeared and testified before her. She called two different people “liars.” Apparently, Judge Judy believes that shaming those who come to her court is an essential part of the justice she dispenses. The adversarial approach in the criminal justice system provides one of the conditions for a subculture of public shaming. Though strict rules usually prevent witnesses (expert or material) from overtly shaming people, the other participants (defense and plaintiff attorneys and judges) often engage in covert shaming interactions. Attorneys are trained professionals who have learned the techniques of covert and subtle shaming of opposing attorneys and witnesses. The shaming in courtrooms is mainly covert and subtle. Overt appeals for truthfulness and justice screen out from the conscious awareness of most spectators the underlying ambience of hostile but subtle shaming in many US courtrooms. By contrast, what is called “reintegrative shaming,” as recommended by the Australian criminologist Professor John B. Braithwaite, communicates respect for the offender and concern for his well-being and is therefore “reintegrative.” This humane approach is “contrasted with the destructive shaming of the traditional criminal justice system that ostracizes, alienates, and often breeds defiance or leads to rejection of pro-social norms and attachment to antisocial ones.”29 Professor Braithwaite is one of the founders of a new approach to justice, the Restorative Justice approach. For more information on this nonpunitive approach to justice, see Chapters 20, 21, and 22 of this book. Professor Braithwaite believes we should simultaneously express our disapproval of the offender’s antisocial act while at the same time expressing our emotional support of the offender as a person worthy of our respect and care. Because the denouncer also communicates respect for the offender and concern for their 28 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p.194. Italics in original. 29 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 163; and John B. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame, and Reintegration. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

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well-being, the denouncer’s intervention is received as reintegrative rather than degrading and disintegrating. The reintegrative-shaming approach is contrasted with the destructive shaming of the traditional criminal justice system with its scapegoating, degradation, and alienation of the shamed offender. There, the disintegrating-shame approach leads to defiance toward prison workers and rejection of the conventional laws and norms. For more on prisoners’ defiance and rejection of conventional social norms, see Chapter 7. Criminologist Dr. Michael Tonry writes, “Braithwaite’s affirmative theories of shaming have nothing in common with Kahan’s proposals which, to the contrary, embody, even celebrate, the kind of destructive processes that Braithwaite decries.”30 I agree with the criticism made by Drs. Tangney and Dearing about the term “reintegrative shaming” first coined by John Braithwaite.31 Professor Braithwaite’s focus on behavior not person, along with the focus on apology and remediation, seems much more congruent with the dynamics of guilt. Tangney and Dearing state that Braithwaite, in his discussion of reintegrative shaming, is using the term shame for what they would call guilt. They warn that his use of the term “shaming” is likely to perpetuate the long-lasting confusion between guilt and shame already prevalent in the clinical and scientific literature.32 The punitive criminal justice approach identifies and labels both the illegal act and the offender as deviant and wrong. Those who use the restorative-justice approach identify only the antisocial act as wrong. When we emphasize the act and refrain from denouncing or degrading the offender as an outcast, we are inculcating guilt, not shame. Braithwaite’s descriptions of the interactions between the denouncer and the offender when the Restorative Justice approach is used fit the description of guilt inculcation and not shame inculcation. To explain why, in agreement with Drs. Tangney and Dearing, I use the term guilt rather than shaming to describe the healing aspect of what Braithwaite called reintegrative shaming, I shall briefly describe the differences between shame and guilt. Although there are similarities between shame and guilt and though they may sometimes occur together, they are different emotions. Probably the most important difference is that shame is linked with a focus on the self, whereas guilt is associated with a focus on a specific behavior.33 Guilt is a sense of remorse over a specific behavior, whereas shame is a global condemnation of the self.34 30 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 163. 31 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 194. 32 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 194. 33 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 23. 34 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 44.

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Shame is linked with desires to hide, escape, or fight back. Guilt is linked with desires to confess, to apologize, and to repair the damage done by the offender. My argument does not deny that the offender may feel both guilt and shame at the same time, as people are apt to feel when publicly confronted with their wrongful actions. However, in this book, in concert with Tangney and Dearing, I emphasize the socially adaptive and constructive functions of guilt as contrasted with the destructive and maladaptive features of shame. I appreciate that guilt sometimes is excessive and pathological, and that a mild form of shame may be normal and beneficial.35

DOES THE SHAME OF PUNISHMENT INHIBIT WRONGDOING? If the shame inculcated by punishment inhibited aggression and wrongdoing, one could argue that this fact might provide a moral justification for the punishment of wrongdoers. Actually there is abundant empirical evidence, from formal research investigations as well as the clinical experience of mental-health professionals, to demonstrate that shame does not inhibit wrongdoing or aggression; in fact, shame tends to incite violence against others or against the self (e.g., suicide). Shame is a cause not a cure for violence. Prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan wrote that “the emotion of shame is the primary or ultimate cause of all violence. . . . Shame is a necessary but not a sufficient cause of violence.”36 Investigations carried out by Drs. Tangney and Dearing show that guilt and not shame aids people in choosing the “moral path” in life. In a longitudinal study of 380 children, they found that shame-proneness assessed in the fifth grade predicted later high school suspension, drug use of various kinds, and suicide attempts. In contrast, guilt-prone fifth graders were less likely to use drugs, be arrested, or be convicted or incarcerated.37 Research done by Cynthia Moore and her colleagues found that men who were more shame-prone were more frequently aggressive toward their partners, whereas proneness to guilt was related to less frequent aggression.38 Contrary to

35 W. Ladson Hinton, Shame as a teacher: “lowly wisdom” at the millennium. In: Florence 1998: Destruction and Creation: Personal and Cultural Transformations, ed. Mary Ann Mattoon. Einsiedein, Switzerland, Daimon Verlag: 1999, pp. 172–185. 36 Gilligan, Violence, p. 110. 37 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, pp. 134–135. 38 Cynthia Moore, Erika Dunkelberg, Laura Chivers, et al., “The Role of Shame and Guilt in Male Aggression Toward Partners.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 52:480– 481, 2004.

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folk wisdom, feelings of shame tend to evoke anger toward others rather than to inhibit anger, rage, and aggression.39 Clinical work with psychiatric patients consistently shows a strong relationship between shame and psychopathology, especially psychiatric disorders stemming from repeated punishment and other forms of chronic psychic trauma. My hypothesis of a causal relationship between shame and psychopathology is supported by empirical research. As Tangney and Dearing write, “Empirical research consistently demonstrates a relationship between proneness to shame and a whole host of psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, subclinical sociopathy, and low self-esteem.”40 Also, research repeatedly links shame to poor interpersonal skills, an impaired capacity for empathy, feelings of anger and rage, and maladaptive strategies for anger management.41

HOW ALLEN WHEELIS BECAME A “PSYCHOLOGICAL SLAVE” The American psychoanalyst Dr. Allen Wheelis tells a moving story of his father’s cruelty and his own increasing rage against the frequent whippings inflicted on him by his father when Allen was a child growing up in Texas. The father was bedridden from a serious physical illness. At first, Allen angrily but obediently followed his father’s orders to cut their vast yard filled with tall grass with a straight-razor blade. Throughout the summer he continued to resist and his resistance evoked more punishment from his father. In the evening after each whipping he was compelled to apologize. The beatings and his father’s verbal abuse engendered feelings of shame and self-loathing. After being beaten and then forced to apologize, he would typically feel “innately lazy, unworthy, and impulsive.”42 The probably unconscious hypocrisy of his pious father is revealed in the way he dismissed his sadism to his son. He told Allen, “Remember son . . . whenever it seems I’m being hard on you . . . it’s because I love you.” Compare the above with what the Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller reports about parents who beat their children and at the same time say, “I’m doing this for your own good”! One day it rained, yet even then Allen was not allowed to go and play with his friends. This final punitive deprivation was the last straw for the boy and his previously suppressed rage. Screaming at his father, the young Wheelis exclaimed, “ ‘You’re the meanest man in the world. You lie up there in bed and are mean to 39 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 110. 40 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 120. 41 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, p. 112. 42 Allen Wheelis, How People Change. New York: Harper & Row, Perennial Library, 1973, p. 63.

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everybody. I hate you!’ I began to feel astonished at myself. How incredible that I should be saying such things — I who had never dared a word of disrespect. ‘You goddamn dirty son of a bitch!’ I screamed. ‘I wish you were dead, do you hear? Do you hear me?’ ” Allen waited for a response from his father but there was none. “The rage passed and I became miserable.”43 Dr. Wheelis emphasizes his lifelong suffering and rage over the beatings he received as a child, and how his father’s voice resonated for years in his head. His father made him a “psychological slave” for much of his life. Note how much this psychological-slave relation replicated the father’s abusive relationship with his son.44

THE CHILDHOOD ROOTS OF PARANOID PSYCHOPATHOLOGY Childhood traumas, including corporal punishment and emotional and physical abuse, may play an important causal role in the etiology of paranoia and paranoid symptoms. One of the best-known cases of a patient with paranoid symptoms is that of Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber. His father was a famous pediatrician, Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber, one of the most influential writers on child-rearing and discipline in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. His son Daniel Paul became a judge and later had a psychiatric breakdown requiring prolonged psychiatric hospitalizations. Schreber’s delusions of being persecuted unconsciously symbolized the various forms of control, beatings, and abuse he had suffered as a child at the hands of his sadistic father. Studies by Drs. William Niederland and Morton Schatzman provide abundant evidence of the harsh methods of discipline employed by Scheber’s father on his children.45 Professor Greven points out that “the elder Schreber’s assault upon the will and the autonomy of his children [and on all children through the medium of his writings, a part of the German tradition that psychoanalyst Alice Miller rightly labels “poisonous pedagogy”] was precisely what generations of fundamentalist Christians have advocated.”46 Schreber’s father invented a series of diabolical, torture-like devices designed to shape and control children’s bodies and physical movements. These included leather and metal devices parents could use to prevent their children from masturbating or sucking their thumbs, neck braces, straps for shoulders, and 43 Wheelis, How People Change, p. 68. 44 Wheelis, How People Change, p. 76. 45 William Niederland, The Schreber Case: Psychoanalytic Profile of a Paranoid Personality. New York: Quadrangle, 1974; and Morton Schatzman, Soul Murder: Persecution in the Family. London: Allen Lane, 1973. 46 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 170.

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harnesses to prevent children from turning over in bed. His methods also included corporal punishment. All of these contrivances, controlling methods, and punishments were directed at one single goal of aiding the parent in becoming “master of the child forever.”47 The coercive domination of children and efforts to break the child’s will so common among fundamentalists and others who use corporal punishment with their children establish the psychic anlagen for the later formation of paranoia and/or paranoid symptoms. The psychologist Dr. David Shapiro views the will as the focal point of paranoid pathology and he recognizes that “Dr. Schreber’s coercive regimen was [intended] to destroy one kind of autonomy . . . and to force acceptance not only of the adult’s command but also of the adult’s standards and precepts — to force acceptance of them. . . . The result was not to be submissive but a new kind of will founded on authoritarian strictness and coercive self-control.”48 The roots of paranoid pathology are found in punitive, violent, parent–child struggles over the child’s will, and in the physically and emotionally forceful ways in which the will of the child is compelled to submit.49 47 Morton Schatzman, “Paranoia or Persecution: The Case of Schreber.” The History of Childhood Quarterly, vol. 1 (Summer 1973), p. 74. 48 David Shapiro, Autonomy and Rigid Character. New York: Basic Books, 1981, p. 164. 49 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 121. In his book on the corporal punishment of children, Professor Philip Greven has a section called “Consequences,” on corporal punishment. He writes (p. 121): “Given the endless ripples from the impact of the physical blows in childhood, from our innermost beings to the outermost edges of our consciousness, our communities, and our world, it is clear that the consequences flowing from physical punishments early in life wash over every aspect of our lives and soak through nearly every part of our society and culture. Punishment is so incorporated into our bodies, our minds, and our characters that its impact and ramifications extend far beyond the scope of any single effort to grasp them.” What follows is a list, in italics, of subheadings in the chapter Greven calls “Consequences.” My comments have been placed in parentheses. Anxiety and Fear: (He concludes his remarks with the accurate statement, “But fear usually gives way to anger and hate,” p. 122). Anger and Hate, and Empathy and Apathy: (His remarks support my claims made earlier in this chapter that punishment tends to stifle empathy and compassion. Greven uses the term apathy for what I call “emotional numbness”). Melancholy and Depression: (As I indicated in this chapter, there is now strong scientific evidence to support Greven’s assertion [p. 130] that “punishment in childhood always has been one of the most powerful generators of depression in adulthood”). Obsessiveness and Rigidity: (A highlight of this section is a review of Erik Erikson’s book Young Man Luther. For Luther one of the more enduring consequences of the severe beatings he received from his father was the shaping of a rigid obsessive-compulsive personality). Ambivalence: Protect and Destroy: (Ambivalence is a prime feature of obsessive-compulsive patients who have suffered from corporal punishment in childhood. Such individuals have contradictory impulses to protect and to destroy the parents who caused them pain and suffering). Dissociation: (At p. 148 Greven aptly defines dissociation as “The ability to disconnect feelings from their contexts and to disconnect one’s sense of self from the external world.” Dissociation is a major kind of defense against the painful emotions evoked by punishment and other kinds of trauma). Paranoia: (I cover this topic in the discussion of the Schreber case). Sadomasochism: (Note the section on Adolf Hitler in this chapter). Domestic Violence: (See Chapter 21 for a discussion of research on this topic). Aggression and Delinquency: (Overwhelming evidence from many scientific studies supports Greven’s

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conclusion that corporal punishment is a major factor in the generation of rage and aggression acted out in delinquents and criminals. For more discussion on this see Chapter 3 of this book). Authoritarianism: (Greven claims that authoritarianism, in both its religious and secular forms, is created by the corporal punishment of children). The Apocalyptic Impulse: (Greven’s comments on this topic are original and unique. To the best of my knowledge he is the first to link the corporal punishment of children with their later development of concerns about the apocalyptic end of the world. Greven concludes [p. 206] that “The painful punishment of children creates the nuclear core of rage, resentment, and aggression that fills fantasies of the apocalyptic end of the world”).

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CHAPTER 2. PUNISHMENT AND THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE By cycle of violence I mean that violence causes violence. Since punishment is a form of violence, it will, like other kinds of violence, also tend to incite more violence. Punishment whether it be emotional (verbal), physical, or whatever, is a kind of violence to the psyche (or spirit) and sometimes also to the body of the victim. Like a contagious disease, violence spreads to other individuals and groups — and from nation to nation. The person or group that is violated will, more often than not, violate others. The notion of cycles of violence applies to relations between individuals, groups, and even whole nations. Cycles of violence may occur in short periods of the present, or slowly over time, sometimes lasting for centuries. Many examples can be found of families, groups, and nations engaged in prolonged and frequent cycles of escalating violence against each other. Historically these include the wars between Rome and Carthage, and Sparta versus Athens. Some violent interactions extend for many centuries, such as the one between the Christian and Moslem peoples in some of the Balkan countries. The past few centuries have seen repeated acts of violence involving protestants versus Catholics in Ireland. Families like the Hatfields and McCoys duke it out for centuries, with each generation suffering multiple casualties. In more recent times we have seen the horrific violent struggles between the Jews and the Palestinians. In 1902, long before scientists studied the cycle of violence, the renowned defense attorney Clarence Darrow wrote the following deeply insightful comments on the socially contagious effects of violence: “To use violence and force upon the vicious and the weak must produce the evil that it gives. Like produces 29


like. Clubs, jails, harsh language, brutal force inevitably tend to reproduce the same state of mind in the victim of the assault.”1 Although the concept of cycles of violence has been around for a long time, only within the past twenty-five years has there been the gradual accumulation of scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that violence begets violence. We now have irrefutable evidence from many investigations of both children and adults that violence causes violence. We use phrases such as the “cycle of violence,” the “vicious circle of violence,” or “violence begets violence” to describe this common and universal pattern. (For a review of the scientific literature on this subject, see Dr. C. S. Widom’s article.2) Dr. Widom’s research showed that both abused and neglected children were more likely to be arrested for delinquency, adult criminality, and violent criminality than children in the control group. She found that child victims of physical abuse were at the highest risk for later violent criminal behavior, whereas victims of gross neglect were in the next highest risk group. Widom’s thorough review of the literature and her own research studies provide strong support for the violence begets violence hypothesis.

TELEVISION EVOKES VIOLENCE Many studies on the effects on children of watching television violence indicate that it evokes aggression among children and at the same time fosters indifference (apathy, emotional numbness) toward others who suffer from violence. Ross Park and Ronald Slaby note that “Research has demonstrated that television must be considered one of the major socializers of children’s aggressive behavior. Two major behavioral effects of heavy viewing of televised violence are: 1) an increase in children’s level of aggression; and 2) an increase in children’s passive acceptance of the use of aggression by others.”3 The historian Dr. Philip Greven concludes: “The culture of violence [America’s] — rooted in physical assaults upon children — is reenacted daily on television for anyone to see.”4

VICIOUS CYCLES OF VIOLENCE IN PRISONS The cycle of violence is often repeated within prisons in the interactions between prisoners and between prisoners and guards. In prisons, the more violent the prisoners become the more harshly the guards and prison authorities punish 1 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, p. 165. 2 Cathy Spatz Widom, “The Cycle of Violence.” Science 244:160–165, 1987. 3 Ross Park and Ronald Slaby, “The Development of Aggression.” In P. H. Mussen, ed., Handbook of Child Psychology, 4th ed., pp. 547–641. New York: Wiley, 1983, p. 605. 4 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 129.

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Chapter 2. Punishment and the Cycle of Violence

them. The more the guards punish the prisoners, the more violent the prisoners become. Both prisoners and guards become engaged in a repetitively escalating and counterproductive power struggle — the ultimate vicious cycle.5 It is neither desirable nor necessary to use harsh (violent) punitive methods to stop the violence of prisoners. Today, nonviolent psychological approaches and psychopharmaceutical agents are available, and are used in psychiatric hospitals to calm violent patients and to break the cycle of violence. Because prison guards are not ordinarily trained in the use of these nonviolent methods for preventing violence, they persist in using violent and punitive methods. The punitive approach to violence in prisons tends to provoke more violence; in contrast, the nonviolent psychiatric approaches used in psychiatric hospitals most often calm violent patients and dissipate the cycle of violence.

INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE One common form taken by the cycle of violence is the intergenerational transmission of emotional (verbal) and physical abuse. In my clinical experience, physical and emotional (verbal) abuse of children tend to occur together. I cannot recall a single case where physical abuse (e.g., corporal punishment) was not accompanied by emotional abuse. The reconstructions presented for the following three family studies are derived from my private practice. The names of the individuals and other kinds of identifying information have been altered to preserve confidentiality and to protect those family members who are alive. The first narrative traces the transmission of a specific kind of emotional abuse involving the inculcation of shame through four generations. In the first example, the great-grandparents emigrated to America from Germany late in the nineteenth century and had three sons. The great-grandmother, Joyce, was more harsh and authoritarian than her spouse. Joyce singled out her second son, Arthur, for corporal punishment and for shaming. The perfectionistic and controlling great-grandmother shamed Arthur by calling him a lazy slacker and comparing him unfavorably to his face with his two allegedly more competent brothers. Arthur married and sired four children. The only boy, Michael, became an active, athletic adolescent who, however, was not a good student. Michael became jealous of his younger sister Ada, who was an excellent student, and he teased and tormented her without mercy. His father Arthur was outraged by Michael’s academic failures and his cruel treatment of his sister, Ada.

5 Gilligan, Violence, p. 106

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Arthur’s verbal shaming attacks on Michael were often accompanied by harsh spankings of Michael for his disobedience to his father and for his aggressiveness toward his sister. Arthur ridiculed and humiliated his son in much the same way as he had been frequently shamed by his mother, Joyce. Michael did not misbehave when his father was at home; but when the father was away, he redoubled his hurtful attacks on Ada. He teased and humiliated Ada for the pimples on her face and her obesity. At seventeen, when Ada was jilted by her boyfriend, she became depressed. She felt bad about the rejection of her boyfriend and she attributed this loss to her being “too fat.” Her sensitivity to her weight was exacerbated by her brother’s scornful remarks. Ada lost her appetite and began losing weight — she lost over forty-five pounds. After a few months, the diagnosis of bulimia was made. Ada recovered from her eating disorder; a few years later she married and had a baby she named Christine. Ada became alarmed that the infant Christine was not getting enough milk and so she attempted to force-feed her. Christine resisted her mother’s efforts by spitting out the food Ada had put in her mouth. A few years later, Ada became embroiled in more power struggles with Christine over when, how, and what Christine should eat. For example, one time she angrily demanded that Christine should eat all the vegetables on her plate before she was given any dessert. Sometimes Ada shamed Christine in front of other people in a manner that was reminiscent of the way her brother Michael had treated her when they both were children. In each generation, one parent was verbally abusive to at least one child, using emotional shaming attacks unconsciously designed to inculcate shame in the victim. These shaming attacks are conceptualized in psychoanalysis as forms of projective identification. In projective identification, the subject disavows some shameful or undesirable aspect of himself and attributes this disavowed part to someone else. Then, through repeated shaming attacks, ridicule, and other manipulations, the victimizer inculcates feelings of shame and low self-esteem in the victim. When the victim grows older, he or she may use similar damaging attacks on his or her siblings or children. Often one child is unconsciously delegated to be the recipient or scapegoat for these subtle and destructive assaults.6 When such shaming verbal assaults are severe and repeated frequently, they may bring about what the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen first called “soul murder.” Later the psychoanalyst Leonard Shengold used the phrase “soul murder” to describe the psychologically damaging effects of childhood abuse.7 6 The colloquial and vernacular terms roughly equivalent to projective identification are “dumping” or “laying a trip” on someone. 7 Shengold, Soul Murder.

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Summing up, great-grandmother Joyce shamed her son Arthur, who internalized the shaming interaction and in turn shamed his son Michael. Michael internalized the shaming interaction and shamed his sister Ada, who also internalized the shaming interaction and shamed her daughter Christine. What will happen to Christine? The probability is that Christine — unless she gains some understanding of what is going on in her family through psychotherapy or other means — will probably pass on the emotional violence (shaming) to a sibling or to one of her children, or to both.

THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF AN ATTITUDE OF CONTEMPT The following story tells of the unconscious transmission of an attitude of contempt for men through four generations of women in one family. The communication of contempt from one person to another is often a severe and damaging type of shaming. The women’s communications of contempt for men in this family were surprisingly alike in all four generations. The victims of these contemptuous messages were the men in the family, especially the husbands of the women, but also at times male siblings, cousins, and the like. It would not be true to say that all of the women in the four generations were contemptuous of all of the men in the family all of the time. Rather, nearly all of the women were contemptuous of most of the men in the family some of the time. These four generations of women had a split in the ego (or self). On one side was a complex of positive loving feelings for the men in their family, and on the other side of the split they had feelings of contempt and disgust for nearly all of the men but one. This one person was never explicitly vilified by any of the women in the four generations. This one exception to the family pattern of contempt for men was an idealized and revered great-grandfather, Albert, who was, for all time, immune from the scorn of all of the women in the four generations. Albert was a much beloved family doctor who suddenly died from a heart attack when he was fifty-six. The doctor was admired and idealized by his patients and others in their semi rural Western community. The term “idealization” also best describes the attitude toward Albert of the three generations who followed the physician and his bereaved wife. The wife of the idealized deceased doctor had a split in her attitudes and feelings toward the esteemed physician. On one side of the split, she denigrated and despised her husband and on the other she had positive feelings for him, especially idealization. Following his sudden and premature death, she repressed her negative feelings toward him and simultaneously her idealization of him became more intense and unrealistic. 33


Feelings which are repressed usually return to consciousness in disguised ways. The great-grandmother’s repressed contempt for her husband Albert was displaced on to other men, especially the husbands of her daughters, their sons, and their grandsons. The great-grandmother’s unconsciously ambivalent attitude toward her husband was unconsciously transmitted to her daughters, each of whom in turn passed this same attitude on down to the next generation. Finally, the third generation unconsciously transmitted this complex on to the current fourth generation of women. One granddaughter unconsciously replicated her grandmother’s idealization of male doctors and married — and in turn divorced — three physicians. In each of her three marriages, an initial intense idealization of her husband was followed within a year or so by disillusionment, then by an angry denigration of her spouse, and finally a bitter divorce. It was as if the ghost of the idealized great-grandfather hovered over the lives of these four generations of women who, following the example of the great-grandmother, worshipped the fallen hero while at the same time despising other men, none of whom could live up to the lofty standard attached to the memory of the posthumously idolized great-grandfather. In addition to the problem of contempt for men, and running parallel to it through the lives of the four generations of women was the unconscious problem of the great-grandmother’s unresolved grief for her husband. Because the greatgrandmother had never completed the painful work of mourning and relinquishing her attachment to her deceased husband, she was fixated on him and his death. She passed on unconsciously to her daughters and granddaughters not only contempt for men but the problem of unresolved mourning for her husband. For these women, and especially for the great-grandmother, Albert never died! His presence (I called it a “ghost” earlier) was often palpably present in interactions and meetings of these four generations of women.

GEORGE’S LEGACY TO GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN

HIS

CHILDREN,

GRANDCHILDREN,

AND

The next story illustrates the transmission of both physical and emotional abuse in four generations. In this family, the transmission of physical abuse was probably more severe and damaging than in the previous two family narratives. Though I term the beatings administered by the parents “physical abuse,” the persons who administered these beatings would disagree with me inasmuch as they called them “punishment,” required, they believed, for the correction of their misbehaving children.

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The story begins with the great-grandfather George, an alcoholic who frequently punished his four children by beating them, especially when he was intoxicated. His oldest son, Norman, ran away from home at age fifteen to escape from his father’s tyranny. Norman later married and fathered three children, all of whom, like his father, he frequently spanked. The oldest child, Paul, was not very bright and he received barely passing or failing grades in school. Norman was ashamed of having a backward son. He beat Paul severely and often subjected him to sadistic emotional abuse, calling him “stupid” and a “worthless failure.” Paul dropped out of school when he was sixteen; thereafter he became a social isolate having neither self-esteem or confidence in himself. He lived in a dingy basement apartment and supported himself with a part-time job as a janitor in a public building. Paul never married and he never recovered from the effects of severe emotional and physical abuse he received from his father. Paul is the tragic victim of his father’s soul-murder techniques of corporal punishment, denigration, and debasement. The second child, Betty, was not as severely punished or damaged by the sadistic father as were her siblings. Nevertheless the father’s tirades and frequent emotional (verbal) and physical punishment left her with moderately severe emotional problems for which she received over ten years of psychotherapy. With the help of her psychotherapy, she was able to stop the cycle of violence and not punish her own children with either the physical or emotional kinds of abuse others in her family had used to punish and control their children for over one hundred years. Norman’s third child, Melissa, was his favorite, and while he spanked her as he did the other children he also actively though unconsciously contributed to her acting out with illegal drugs, promiscuous sex, shoplifting, and other kinds of antisocial activity. Norman contributed to his daughter Melissa’s antisocial acting-out behavior in two ways. First, he failed to set limits on her delinquent acts or to discipline her. Secondly, he subtly and covertly encouraged her delinquency. In this way he vicariously enjoyed and participated in her antisocial acting out. This dynamic of vicarious acting-out was first reported by the psychiatrists Adelaide Johnson and S. A. Szurek. They described the way some parents unconsciously support the delinquency of their children.8 Melissa was expelled from high school because of her antisocial actions, and a diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder was made by the school psychologist. She was married three times and her only child, Jason, was born during her second marriage. Melissa would beat Jason often and severely in a way similar 8 Adelaide Johnson and Stanislaus A. Szurek, “The Genesis of Antisocial Acting Out in Children and Adults.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 21:323–343, 1952.

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to the way her father Norman had beaten her. Jason, like his mother, became a juvenile delinquent, and when he was nineteen was convicted of armed robbery and was sentenced to prison. In one branch of George’s family, the pattern of physical and emotional abuse was transmitted to the next three generations (George Norman Melissa Jason). In another branch of the family, the cycle of violence was broken, in part because Betty received psychotherapy and did not pass on to her two children the physical and emotional abuse she received from her father, Norman (George Norman Betty). As indicated in Chapter 1, corporal punishment of a child increases the chances that, when the child becomes an adult, he or she will approve of interpersonal violence, be in a violent marriage, and be depressed. Corporal punishment is an immensely important and common way that violence (physical and emotional abuse) is transmitted from one generation to the next generation.9

INTERNALIZED PUNISHMENT AND THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE One common aspect of the cycle of violence involves the child’s internalization of a parent’s punishing behavior. A parent’s punishment of a child is internalized when the child treats himself or herself in a manner patterned after the punitive way he or she has been treated by the parent. This is probably the most common kind of cycle of violence I find in the patients I treat or whose therapy I supervise in my clinical work. During a psychoanalytic session, a patient who felt guilty over mistreating his wife began hitting himself on his forehead with his clenched fist. A few weeks previously he had recovered memories of being beaten on his forehead by his psychotic mother when he was in the fourth grade. I said, “I notice you are hitting yourself on your forehead in a way similar to the way your mother hit you when you were a child.” He stopped, remembered the beatings he had sustained at the hands of his mentally ill mother, and said, “I wasn’t aware of hitting myself until you told me. I’m punishing myself in the same way my mother did.” At times of stress or embarrassment, this patient would sometimes impulsively bite his tongue or his cheeks. These also were self-punitive replications of times when his psychotic mother would bite him. A middle-aged businessman, Mr. B., came to psychoanalysis with symptoms of depression and low self-esteem. Mr. B. grew up on a large ranch in Texas. His parents were conscientious members of a fundamentalist church that encour9 Murray A. Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families and Its Effects on Children. 2nd ed. London: Transaction Publishers, 2001, p. 96.

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aged the “chastisement” of misbehaving children. Both parents were stern and harsh in their discipline, which took the form of spankings and shaming emotional abuse. The mother more than the father used the induction of guilt and shame as her major methods for punishing and controlling her three children. Self-punishment played an important part in Mr. B’s personality trait of procrastination. Often he would delay cleaning his office, paying his bills, answering letters, and the like. Then he would suffer pangs of conscience and guilt because of his repeated failures to complete his work on the strict schedule he set for himself. He would angrily scold and shame himself by calling himself the most degrading and humiliating names he could think of. Over time, he used his analytic hours to discover that punishing himself gave him some brief relief from his feelings of loneliness and/or emptiness. Before he was able to give up this symptom, Mr. B. preferred actively scolding and punishing himself (as his mother had done to him when he was a child) over passively enduring the pain of feeling alone and helpless. In his psychoanalytic treatment, the understanding and mastering of his punitive relationship with his mother entailed the repeated examination of his selfpunitiveness and its origin in his childhood interactions with his harsh mother. He gradually learned how he had been unconsciously repeating those early punitive relations with others, with himself, and with his analyst. Repeated analytic examination of the way Mr. B. replicated his punitive interactions with his mother when he was procrastinating assisted him in gradually emancipating himself from his painful, punitive attachment to her. His gradual detachment from her toxic and punitive influence was associated with his development of a more autonomous self, increased self-esteem, and more mature relationships with others. Another aggressively self-punitive attitude he had internalized from his interactions with his parents was his conviction that in order to motivate himself and accomplish anything constructive he would have to painfully force himself to work. This attitude of “forcing” himself was pervasive in many of his activities. His unquestioned assumption was that unless he forced himself, he would not do anything; therefore, in order to accomplish any task he had to force himself to do it. His phrase for forcing himself was “beating the hell out of myself.” His nearly lifelong deep need for the motivating and enlivening power of selfpunishment had left him out of touch with his feelings and desires about what he wished to do or even what he just wanted to do. He feared that if he gave up the self-punishment he would become lazy, useless, or “no good.” Often I pointed out how seldom he told me about what he wanted to do and how desperately he held on to emphasizing what he ought to do. By denying himself the right to choice he 37


continued to live under the domination of a punitive internal dictator. Inasmuch as he lived like a slave dominated by a punitive internal tyrant, he was replicating and holding on to his childhood relationship with a controlling and punitive mother. The day in Mr. B’s analysis when he discovered he could do something because he had chosen to do it rather than because he had forced himself to do it was a landmark day — a victory over his self-punitive identification with his despotic mother. Violence begets violence. The major point made in this chapter is that punishment does not stop the cycle of violence; rather, punishment, because it is a form of violence, actually promotes more violence. The only effective and ethical way of preventing the transmission of violence from one individual or group of individuals to another individual or group of individuals is through approaches that are nonviolent and nonpunitive.

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CHAPTER 3. THE EFFECTS OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT ON CHILDREN This chapter summarizes the scientific studies on the corporal punishment of children, focusing on the long-term damaging effects of corporal punishment, and argues for nonviolent alternatives to corporal punishment. Finally, it makes a case for passage of laws banning the corporal punishment of children. Children have been beaten and hit in many societies since the beginning of history and it has not been considered either a social problem or morally wrong until recent times. Even today, hitting children often continues to be defined as a morally correct and necessary way of disciplining children and not as a problem to be changed or criticized as immoral. Within the Western world, both corporal punishment and the physical abuse of children have decreased in recent times.1 The decrease has been in the more extreme types of physical abuse, but unfortunately there has been far less change in the less physically violent forms of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior. The most frequent forms of corporal punishment are spanking, slapping, grabbing, or shoving a child roughly . . . and hitting the child with certain objects such as a belt, paddle, or brush. Until recently there has been a cloak of silence about corporal punishment. Many parents, educators, and mental health professionals still take it for granted, and/or they trivialize its harmful impact on children. 1 Lloyd DeMause, The History of Childhood. New York: Psychohistory Press, 1984.

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Toward the end of his life, after equivocating for decades, the pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock finally took a clear public stand against corporal punishment for children. Dr. Spock acknowledged that: “physical punishment . . . plays a role in our acceptance of violence. If we are ever to turn toward a kindlier society and a safer world, a revulsion against the physical punishment of children would be a good place to start.”2 Today much normative support for corporal punishment can be found in many sectors of American society, even in the face of overwhelming evidence provided by systematic research that corporal punishment tends to be harmful to the mental health and well-being of children. A study by the National Opinion Research Center in 1988 found that ninety-four percent of American adults agreed that, “It is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking.”3 In the recent past, physicians tended to support the physical punishment of children. Doctor K. F. McCormick4 assessed the attitudes of 619 family physicians and pediatricians about the use of spanking. Seventy percent of family physicians and fifty-nine percent of pediatricians favored the use of spanking as a method of disciplining children. Physicians who were opposed to spanking and other forms of corporal punishment were more likely to offer guidance to parents about nonviolent methods of dealing with the child’s misbehavior than physicians who supported what they regarded as the positive practice of corporal punishment. At the present time in the United States, most children experience spanking and other forms of corporal punishment by their parents. Research shows that about ninety-four percent of parents use corporal punishment on toddlers and more than half continued to use it during the early teen years.5 A study of elementary and middle-school administrators in South Carolina reveals strong support for corporal punishment among public school officials. Two-thirds of the administrators believed that discipline problems would in-

2 Benjamin Spock. Dr. Spock on Parenting: Sensible Advice from America’s Most Trusted Child-Care Expert. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988, pp. 151–152. 3 Clifton P. Flynn, “Normative Support for Corporal Punishment: Attitudes, Correlates and Implications.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 1:47–55, 1996, p. 48. 4 K. F. McCormick, “Attitudes of Primary Care Physicians Toward Corporal Punishment.” Journal of the American Medical Association 267(23):3161–3165, 1992. 5 Murray A. Straus and Julie H. Stewart, “Corporal Punishment by American Parents: National Data on Prevalence, Chronicity, Severity, and Duration, in Relation to Child and Family Characteristics.” Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 21:55–70, 1999.

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Chapter 3. The Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children

crease if corporal punishment was abolished.6 Nevertheless, by 1993 half the states in this country had banned corporal punishment in public schools.7 The high prevalence rates of corporal punishment in the US and the high approval rates of spanking may be interpreted as an indicator that most parents spank their children with little concern about the possible harmful side-effects of spanking.

SCIENTIFIC STUDIES ON EFFECTS OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT There are approximately one hundred articles describing scientific investigations into the effects of corporal punishment of children. Though no single paper can prove the hypothesis about the harmful effects of corporal punishment, together these studies provide robust and valid evidence confirming the hypothesis that corporal punishment has damaging long-term effects. I have not found a single scientific publication that provides evidence that corporal punishment is associated with beneficial effects in children. The work of researchers such as Dr. Murray Straus and his associates demonstrates that the harmful psychological effects of being physically punished by a parent are not restricted to the sort of severe attacks that are labeled as physical abuse.8 In agreement with Straus, I also argue that corporal punishment is a form of physical abuse and that it often causes harmful psychological effects in its victims.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND PHYSICAL ABUSE At one time, like most people, I believed one could distinguish between physical abuse and legal, socially approved spanking of children. After decades of treating with psychotherapy or psychoanalysis scores of people who had been spanked by their parents, I no longer hold the above attitude. Now I join with the growing number of mental health professionals in believing that spanking carried out by parents or teachers is a form of physical abuse and that its long-term effects are not much different from the effects of physical abuse of children not motivated by disciplinary considerations. Dr. Straus and others argue that legal forms of corporal punishment of children (e.g., spanking) are some of the major causes of physical abuse, and that the social tolerance of corporal punishment is a precondition of physical abuse.9 6 F. J. Medway and J. M. Smircic, “Willingness to Use Corporal Punishment Among School Administrators in South Carolina.” Psychological Reports 71:65–66, 19XX, p. 65. 7 Irwin A. Hyman, Reading, Writing, and the Hickory Stick. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990. 8 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 77. 9 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 81.

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Roger Bybee argues that the widespread support for corporal punishment sets the psychological stage for other types of violence and the escalation of that violence.10 Studies by Straus and others indicate that corporal punishment can lead to overt physical abuse by a process that works at several levels. At the immediate incident level, the escalation of violence is a sequence of interactions between a parent and a child: a parent spanks a child, the child rebels rather than complies, then the frustrated and rageful parent attacks the child in a way that crosses the boundary between legal corporal punishment and overt physical abuse.11 From a developmental perspective, the more corporal punishment is used the greater the risk of escalation, because corporal punishment inhibits the child’s development of an internalized conscience, along with inhibition of the internalization of prohibitions against violence. Coupled with this partial failure of the development of a conscience (superego), more physically aggressive behavior by the child then occurs. Another frequent dynamic reinforcing the tendency toward violent or aggressive action is an identification with the aggressor. The child unconsciously identifies with whoever has treated him violently. For example, the traumatized child who has been spanked identifies with the one who has spanked him and then may act out his violent desires toward others by hitting them. Therefore, the more parents rely on hitting the child, the more they will have to do it over time, and the greater the chance of the child hitting back. All of the above considerations increase the risk that corporal punishment will lead to overt physical abuse. Dr. Straus describes three different studies with large samples, which show that the more the parents were corporally punished as adolescents, the greater the percentage who went beyond ordinary corporal punishment with their own children and participated in attacks severe enough to be classified as physical abuse.12 Clinical work with abusive parents has shown that much physical abuse begins as an effort by parents to control and correct a child’s misbehavior through corporal punishment. When the child does not comply, or when, as with older children, the child retaliates by hitting back or with verbal abuse, the resulting frustration and rage lead some parents to increase the severity of their physical attack on the child. In the above kinds of situations a vicious cycle of escalating rage and violence may ensue. The more the child resists or even fights back, the harder the adult 10 Roger W. Bybee. “Violence Toward Youth: A New Perspective.” Journal of Social Issues: Violence Toward Youth in Families 35:1–14, 1979. 11 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 96. 12 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 84–85.

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will hit the child. The latter response engenders more rage and frustration in the child who then redoubles his efforts to defend himself and frustrates his parents’ attempts to discipline and control him.

DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE One side effect of corporal punishment is an increased chance later in life of being depressed and/or suicidal.13 The theory that corporal punishment increases the risk of depression and suicidal behavior later in life was tested by Straus and his associates using information on almost 6,000 participants in the second National Family Violence Survey.14 The corporal punishment of children and adolescents is linked with a lowered prospect for a desirable occupation and income. The more corporal punishment is inflicted on boys and girls, the lower the chances of their being in the top fifth of the US population economically.15

ASSAULTS ON SIBLINGS AND SPOUSES In their study of 1,141 children, Straus found that children whose parents used corporal punishment are more than twice as likely to severely attack a sibling than children whose parents did not. Only eighteen percent of the “none” group (“none” meaning no corporal punishment in the previous year) repeatedly attacked a sibling during the year. In contrast, seventy-eight percent of the children who were spanked in the previous year had repeatedly physically assaulted their own siblings.16 A study of slightly less than 2,000 husbands and wives showed that the more the participants were hit by their parents as adolescents, the higher the percent who assaulted their spouses during the year of the survey.17 Another study revealed that the more a parent hits a child, the greater the chances that the parent will also hit his or her spouse.18

VIOLENT CRIME, PROPERTY CRIME, AND DELINQUENT ACTS Studies by a variety of investigators indicate a causal relationship between corporal punishment of children and the later antisocial acting-out by the victims

13 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 67. 14 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 71–75. 15 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 141. 16 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 102. 17 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 104. 18 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 105.

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in violent crimes, property crimes, and delinquent acts.19 Children who grow up witnessing violence between their parents are more likely to be delinquent than children who do not witness violence between their parents.20 The effect of corporal punishment of children in schools is similar to what occurs in families. Straus found that states in which teachers are allowed to hit children have a higher rate of student violence and a higher murder rate.21 Straus used data on the attitudes of teachers to determine if countries in which teachers are more favorable to corporal punishment have higher homicide rates. He found that nations where teachers favor corporal punishment have a higher murder rate for infants.22 Approval of corporal punishment by teachers in no way implies that teachers are in favor of murdering infants. However, the approval of corporal punishment contributes to creating the social conditions for increasing the rate of infant homicides.23 As the frequency of corporal punishment of children increases, so does the chance of sadomasochistic sex in adulthood.24

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE A number of investigations by different researchers demonstrate that corporal punishment has damaging effects on the development of the child’s conscience. One investigation by Straus demonstrated that the more corporal punishment is inflicted on adolescents, the greater the chances of their failure to develop a mature conscience.25 Contrary to the belief of fundamentalist Protestants and others, spanking does not instill mature moral standards in the punished child or adolescent. Both the clinical experience of seasoned mental-health professionals and the more formal systematic research of Straus and others point in the opposite direction. Corporal punishment frequently blocks, or at least retards, the development of a mature conscience. Although corporal punishment may force children and others to temporarily conform to the rules set down by their parents or teachers, in the child it also leads to a feeling of powerlessness and to an arrest in the development of an internalized conscience. By an internalized conscience I mean the development of an internal moral regulation system (e.g., the superego) that regulates the child’s behavior according to accepted religious and societal moral norms. 19 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 108–109. 20 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 109. 21 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 113. 22 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 115. 23 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 116. 24 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 130. 25 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 142–146.

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The development of such an internalized moral regulation system is retarded in children who are victims of corporal punishment. Rather, their normal regulatory system is fixated at a lower level similar to that one finds in two- or threeyear-old children who have only the rudiments and precursors of an internalized conscience, such as a fear of being caught and punished by their parents for their misbehavior. A classic study by Sears, Maccoby, and Levin shows that children who are spanked the most are more aggressive and have a less fully developed conscience. Contrary to the myth that spanking prevents the development of spoiled children, children of non-spanking parents are more likely to be easier to manage and better behaved than the children of parents who spank. In part this is because such children tend to have a more mature conscience, one that informs them about what is wrong and what is right. Their behavior is regulated by their own conscience and not by their fearful need to either defy or submit to the authority of punitive parents.26 In Class and Conformity, Melvin Kohn argues persuasively that corporal punishment tends to produce adults who are poorly adapted to high-level occupations requiring creativity and initiative. Instead, those children subjected to corporal punishment tend to become adults who are adapted to low-level occupations in which obedience and compliance rather than creativity and initiative are the main requirements.27 Dr. Straus writes that “children learn from corporal punishment the script to follow for almost all violence. The basic principle of that script is what underlies most instances of parents hitting children — that when someone does something outrageous and won’t listen to reason, it is morally correct to physically attack the offender.”28 In short, corporal punishment teaches children that it is morally all right to use violence.

FIVE PROSPECTIVE STUDIES ON THE EFFECTS OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT Prospective studies of corporal punishment provide the strongest evidence for the long-term destructive effects of corporal punishment. These investigations deal with the causal relationship between corporal punishment and antisocial behavior by measuring the level of antisocial behavior at the start of the study and comparing those data with measurements made years later. One im26 Robert R. Sears, Eleanor C. Maccoby, and Harry Levin, Patterns of Child Rearing. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson and Company, 1957, p. 251. 27 Melvin L. Kohn, Class and Conformity: A Study in Values. 2nd ed.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. 28 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 101.

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portant prospective study was carried out by Straus on a large sample of 3,000 children.29 The children were in three age groups: three to five, six to nine, and ten to fourteen. The mothers of the children were interviewed at the start of the study in 1988 and then again in 1990 and in 1992. The findings were very similar for all three age groups and for the changes after two years and four years. To determine the frequency of corporal punishment, the mothers were asked how many times they had spanked their child in the past week. To measure antisocial behavior, mothers were asked to indicate, for the previous three months, the frequency with which the child “cheats or tells lies,” “bullies or is cruel/mean to others,” “does not feel sorry after misbehaving,” “breaks things deliberately,” is “disobedient at school,” and “has trouble getting along with teachers.”30 In addition to corporal punishment, other things do influence antisocial behavior. For example, boys have higher rates of antisocial activities than girls, and children whose mothers are supportive and warm are less likely to behave in antisocial ways. Although these and other variables do lessen the effect of corporal punishment, Straus “found that the tendency for corporal punishment to make things worse over the long run applies regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender of the child, and regardless of the extent to which the mother provides cognitive stimulation and emotional support.”31 The research showed that, during the first year of this study, the more corporal punishment was used, the greater was the tendency for antisocial behavior to increase subsequent to the corporal punishment. Straus concludes that corporal punishment is an important cause of early antisocial behavior.32 In addition to the study just summarized, Straus describes four other prospective and landmark investigations, which I will briefly summarize. Gunnoe and Mariner examined the effect of corporal punishment on two aspects of the behavior of 1,112 children: fighting at school and antisocial behavior. Parents were interviewed at the onset of research and again five years later. They found that the more frequently corporal punishment was inflicted on the children in year one, the higher the levels of antisocial behavior and fighting were in school five years later.33

29 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 197. 30 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 197. 31 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 197. 32 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 197. 33 Marjorie L. Gunnoe and Carrie Z. Mariner, “Toward a Developmental-Contextual Model of the Effects of Parental Spanking on Children’s Aggression.” Archives in Pediatric Adolescent Medicine 151:768–775, 1997.

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A third prospective study by Brezina analyzed data on 1,519 adolescent boys and demonstrated that the more corporal punishment was experienced by the boys at the onset of the study, the higher the level of the adolescents boys assaulting a parent was a year and a half later.34 In a five-year study of 113 seventh-grade boys on the effects of corporal punishment with respect to dating violence, Simons and his colleagues found that the higher the frequency of corporal punishment experienced by these boys, the greater the probability of their physically assaulting a girlfriend.35

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT TENDS TO RETARD COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT A fifth prospective research study investigated the effects of corporal punishment on children’s cognitive development.36 This research demonstrated that “children who were not spanked had faster than average mental development, and children who were spanked a lot fell behind the average.”37 Cognitive capacities were measured when the research began and again two years later. In sum, these five prospective studies provide strong and convincing evidence that corporal punishment has damaging long-term effects on children.

CONCLUSIONS FROM SCIENTIFIC STUDIES The evidence from many scientific studies shows that the more corporal punishment a person experiences in childhood, the more likely they are 1. Later in childhood to “hit other children,” “act out aggressively in other ways such as hitting their parents,” and “experience less rapid cognitive development”; and 2. As an adult to “be depressed or suicidal,” “physically abuse their child or spouse,” “engage in other violent crime,” “have a drinking problem,” “be attracted to masochistic sex,” and “be less likely to achieve a high occupation and income.”38

34 Timothy Brezina, “Teenage Violence Toward Parents as an Adaptation to Family Strain: Evidence From a National Survey of Male Adolescents.” Youth and Society 30:416–444, 1999. 35 Ronald L. Simons, Kuei-Hsiu Lin, and Leslie C. Gordon, “Socialization in the Family of Origin and Male Dating Violence: A Prospective Study.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60:467– 478, 1998. 36 Murray A. Straus and Mollie J. Paschall, “Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Children’s Cognitive Development: A Longitudinal Study of Two Age Cohorts,” paper presented at the Sixth International Family Violence Research Conference, Durham, NH, Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, 1999. 37 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 203. 38 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 165–166.

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In our violent society, corporal punishment contributes to our punitive criminal justice system, to violent crime, and to militarism.39 In US schools, corporal punishment decreases children’s motivation to learn and increases levels of violence and vandalism.40 In the family, corporal punishment contributes to lesseffective socialization, to child abuse, to spousal abuse, and to sibling abuse.41 Corporal punishment contributes to the development of depression, suicide, low self-esteem, alienation, violence approval, and non-family violence and other crime, along with the confounding of sex with violence, authoritarianism, and a multitude of different psychiatric disorders.42

NONVIOLENT MODES OF DISCIPLINE In striking contrast to the damaging effects of corporal punishment, nonviolent modes of discipline foster the child’s cognitive development and development of conscience, as well as his or her ability to have compassion and empathy for others. Parents who use nonviolent forms of discipline also most commonly “respect the body, the feelings, and the selfhood of the child even when experiencing and expressing disapproval of particular actions or ways of expressing the will or the self.”43 Nonviolent modes of discipline employ a combination of warmth, firmness, and reasoning with children. Parents who use nonviolent approaches point out to children the consequences to others of the child’s misbehavior and good behavior. Parents using nonviolent methods of discipline actively educate and guide their offspring to be kind to others, to share, and to be helpful to others. Nonviolent discipline that emphasizes patient reasoning with children fosters an awareness of and a sensitivity to the emotions and attitudes of others, which aids them in the development of both empathy and compassion. As the American psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin states, compassion is grounded in a sense of mutuality, “the ability to share feelings and intentions without demanding control, to experience sameness without obliterative difference.”44 The prevention of antisocial behavior and delinquency requires, among other things, discipline — in the sense of clear rules and standards for the child’s be39 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 218. 40 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 218. 41 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 218. 42 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 218. 43 Greven, Spare the Rod, p. 128. 44 Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination. New York: Pantheon, 1988, p. 48.

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havior — as well as parental supervision, monitoring, and enforcement. If discipline takes the form of corporal punishment, the problems will be exacerbated. This happens because, while corporal punishment may temporarily inhibit the child’s acting out, it eventually tends to boomerang and increases the level of juvenile antisocial behavior. I urge physicians and mental health professionals to separately and collectively support legislation abolishing corporal punishment in families, in schools, and in the entire United States. Individuals in the above professions should help educate parents in the use of nonviolent and nonphysical methods of disciplining their children. Dr. Irwin A. Hyman’s book, The Case Against Spanking: How to Discipline Your Child Without Hitting, is recommended reading for physicians, school officials, and parents.45

WANTED — A NATIONAL BAN ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT Establishing a national ban on corporal punishment of children is not as farfetched as it at may at first sound. At least nine other Western countries have passed laws abolishing corporal punishment, and more countries are considering such laws. In 1979, Sweden became the first country to make spanking children illegal. Later other countries, among them Norway, Finland, Denmark, Cyprus, Latvia, Croatia, Italy, and Austria, passed laws against corporal punishment of children.46 Although at first many Swedish citizens opposed the new law, a large majority now favor the abolition of corporal punishment. How did this change take place? Several actions taken by the Swedish government explain the change in attitude from opposition to acceptance. One is that the Swedish government itself took a nonviolent and nonpunitive approach to this social problem. The no-spanking law became part of their civil code and not the criminal code. No punishments are meted out for parents when they spank their children. Rather than punish parents, the Swedish law was intended to provide a new, nonviolent standard for the discipline of children, and to assist both parents and children.47 Corporal punishment is inconsistent with American humane values. It is also inconsistent with the principles and teachings of the major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism. We no longer permit the hitting of wives, apprentices, servants, prisoners, and members of the armed forces. The corporal 45 Irwin A. Hyman, The Case Against Spanking: How to Discipline Your Child Without Hitting. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. 46 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 175. 47 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 184.

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punishment of the above groups was legal until late in the nineteenth century and on into the early twentieth century. Hitting children is simply wrong. Moreover, there is now abundant evidence summarized above that corporal punishment has long-term damaging effects on the child’s development and personality. It may be helpful to compare what happened in response to the research on smoking in this country some decades ago with what is now occurring in the research on spanking. The Surgeon General’s committee on smoking, over many years, reviewed research on the effects of smoking. Their review of the research acknowledged the limitations of studies when considered one by one. Finally, they decided that despite the limitations of the individual studies, the cumulative evidence indicated that smoking does cause lung cancer and does contribute to the causation of other serious diseases. The Surgeon General’s committee recommended an end to smoking. It is now time for the Surgeon General to recommend stopping the corporal punishment of children. The cumulative weight of the evidence, particularly that from the five prospective studies I summarized earlier in this chapter, provides sufficient evidence and scientific support for a new Surgeon General’s warning about the harmfulness of spanking.48 The American Academy of Pediatrics has already made a valuable step in that direction by advising parents to avoid spanking.49

48 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 205. 49 American Academy of Pediatrics, “Guidance for Effective Discipline (RE 9740).” Pediatrics 101:723–728, 1998.

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CHAPTER 4. PUNISHMENTS AND PERILS IN TODAY’S PRISONS Although incarceration has always been more or less stressful for all prisoners, certain new stressors of prison life today are especially traumatic and bring about much suffering and sometimes enduring psychological damage to many inmates. These stressors include the failure to adequately treat prisoners with psychiatric disorders, overcrowding, psychiatric casualties of supermaximum custody prisons, rape, gang violence, murder, the high incidence of suicide, and inadequate medical care. Because of the inhumane conditions in US prisons today, the Human Rights Watch organization monitors prisons in the US as it did those of Iran and Iraq (before the US invaded Iraq in 2003).1 The traumas and stresses of jails and in our overcrowded prisons are especially damaging to the large number of mentally ill warehoused in today’s penal institutions. In the first section of this chapter, I shall discuss the care — or more accurately, the lack of care — of the mentally ill in prisons today.

CARE OF THE MENTALLY ILL IN AMERICA’S PRISONS America’s correctional facilities have become inadequate and poorly prepared psychiatric wards — the largest providers of mental health services in the United States today. This country’s jails and prisons house over a quarter of a million men and women who require mental health treatment. A large number of prisoners enter the correctional system in dire need of psychiatric care, and 1 Gilligan, Violence, p. 24.

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countless others suffer emotional breakdowns within the prison as a result of the punitive and inhumane treatment they receive in prison. Psychiatric facilities in most prisons today are understaffed and unable to provide effective treatment to more than a small fraction of those prisoners who need treatment.2 The most recent and authoritative study on psychiatric care in penal institutions was done by the Human Rights Watch in their 215 page report released on October 22, 2003. According to this report, prisons in the US hold three times more people with mental illness than do psychiatric hospitals. Between 200,000 and 300,000 male and female prisoners suffer from serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. The report states that few prisons offer adequate mental health-care services and that the prison environment is dangerous and debilitating for inmates with mental illness. “These prisoners are victimized by other inmates, punished by prison staff for behaviors associated with their illness, and often placed in highly restricted cells that exacerbate their symptoms.”3 The US prison system not only serves as a warehouse for the mentally ill, but, by its flagrant use of restrictive housing (isolation, confinement) for mentally ill inmates, it also acts as an incubator for worse illness and psychiatric breakdown, according to the Human Rights Watch report. The federal government’s war on drugs has swept up people with mental illness at higher rates than those for the general population because more people with mental illness abuse drugs. The report emphasizes that punishment usually has a destructive effect on the mentally ill, and that treatment, in contrast, can be helpful if not always curative to many of the mentally ill who abuse drugs or alcohol. Drug crimes are a major contributor to the growing number of mentally ill in jails and prisons. The report emphasizes that prisons and jails are not therapeutic environments. The report recommends that both the federal government and local governments establish inpatient and outpatient facilities for the treatment of the mentally ill so that they will no longer be placed in penal institutions.4 In prisons, mentally disturbed inmates are often subjected to ridicule, abuse, and punitive practices that worsen their psychiatric disorders and escalate already explosive situations. Without competent psychiatric treatment, many prisoners wind up in solitary confinement or defensively subjecting themselves to a self-imposed isolation in their own cells, thus causing further deterioration of their condition. The result is a serious threat, not only to other prisoners and 2 Terry A. Kupers, Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. 3 William Kanapoux, “Guilty of Mental Illness.” Psychiatric Times XXI:1, 4–5, January 2004. 4 Kanapoux, “Guilty of Mental Illness,” p. 5.

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Chapter 4. Punishments and Perils in Today’s Prisons

their caretakers, but, once released from prison, these brutalized and damaged mentally ill persons constitute a real and documented threat to our communities. The conditions in most prisons today are truly cruel and inhumane; the mental health services are grossly inadequate, and the abuse of prisoners, especially mentally ill prisoners, is widespread.5 The California psychiatrist Dr. Terry Kupers argues persuasively that three major reasons explain why so many prisoners suffer from serious psychiatric disorders. These include the prisoners’ traumatic pasts, overcrowding and other harsh prison conditions, and confinement in psychosis-inducing supermaximum security units.6 A large percentage of prisoners have suffered from psychic trauma in infancy and early childhood. An overwhelming majority of prisoners (approximately eighty percent) come from the inner cities. The lives of inner-city, low-income children are filled with trauma. Early trauma plays an important causal role in the psychosocial genesis of many psychiatric disorders, including serious depression, personality disorders, addictions, and psychoses. Racism, pervasive poverty, poor schools, and high unemployment also play an important part in the etiology of disturbed personality development and lives of most inmates. In prisons, the mentally ill who become recalcitrant or violent are often not provided with psychiatric treatment for their symptoms. Instead, they are punished, for example, by being placed in isolation. This starts a new vicious cycle in which the mentally ill person shows even more bizarre (e.g., throwing feces) or violent behavior. The prison guards then respond with more harsh punishment, and so it continues.7 An important and widespread problem in the psychiatric units of jails and prisons is staff burnout. Several aspects of prison life today contribute to burnout and probably the most important is the toxic punitive environment in which these professionals work. The therapeutic goals and approaches of mental health professionals often conflict with the punitive goals and methods of other prison employees.8 Dr. Kupers concludes, “Because the number of prisoners needing mental health services is huge, and most prisons’ mental health delivery systems are underfunded, understaffed, and sadly lacking, the caring staff eventually begin to suffer from burnout.”9

5 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 214. 6 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 64. 7 Kupers, Prison Madness, pp. 32–33. 8 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 85. 9 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 84.

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SUICIDE IN JAILS AND PRISONS The suicide rate in jails is at least five times higher than in the general population, and the suicide rate in prisons is twice as high as in the general population.10 Nearly all of the inmates who kill themselves in jails or prisons suffer from some type of serious mental illness. As I indicate in my vignette about Betty in Chapter 13, incarceration in jail is itself a risk factor for suicide. The highest risk of suicide is on the first day of incarceration in jails. Fifty percent of jail suicides occur on the first day of incarceration and twenty-nine percent within the first three hours.11 In addition to working with inmate Betty’s case, I have performed a psychological autopsy on two other suicides in jails in which the inmates hanged themselves within three hours of their admission to the jail. In my judgment, the stress and shame of being incarcerated in all these cases was the proximal cause of their suicide. In prisons, many ways can be found to arrange one’s death without having to directly kill oneself. Sometimes this kind of suicide is called “victim precipitated homicide” and consists of one person provoking another person to kill them. For example, some prisoners make escapes trying to go over the prison walls in broad daylight, knowing they will be shot by the vigilant guards. Others pick a fight with a prison tough or gang member knowing they will be killed.

MASS INCARCERATION AND OVERCROWDING The severe overcrowding of our jails and prisons in the past twenty-five years has come about through mass incarceration. The increase in the rate of incarceration has been greater than the rate of building new penal institutions, leading to severe overcrowding in most prisons. With about 5 in every 1,000 Americans in jail or prison on any given day, the United States has the dubious distinction of incarcerating a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country in the world. Overcrowding is a major source of stress and conflict between inmates in jails and especially in prisons today. Frequently two prisoners are placed in cells only large enough for one person. Much research shows that overcrowding is linked with an increase in the prevalence of violence, psychiatric disorders, and suicide. Crowding also brings about a loss of privacy, increased noise, and worse sanitation.12 10 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 177. 11 L. M. Hayes, “National Study of Jail Suicides: Seven Years Later.” Psychiatric Quarterly 60:7–29, 1989. 12 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 47.

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From about 1970 to 2000, many politicians competed with one another in coming out vigorously against crime and criminals. In their enthusiastic support for ever-longer sentences, sometimes even for minor offenses, politicians exploited the fear and hatred of citizens in their strident appeals to get “tough on crime.” In view of the superheated emotions of fear and hatred generated publicly in attacks by politicians on criminals, any humane attention paid to prisoners themselves — by the news media or the public — became a politically charged issue. The pejorative shorthand terms for such attention were “coddling” or being “soft on crime.” After about 1975, most programs for rehabilitation, for treatment, and for the education of prisoners were cut back on or dropped. Newspaper editor Peter Sussman writes: It has become almost fashionable for local penal officials to vie with one another in dreaming up new ways to pander to public hysteria by further debasing prisoners and stripping them of their remaining vestiges of personal dignity. Chain gangs, tents in the desert, and striped clothing are just a few of the ways in which already dehumanized men and women have been deprived of whatever individuality they had left.13

The harsh new anti-drug laws and “three strikes” legislation have made major contributions to the overcrowding in prisons. Many of those subjected to the twenty-five-years-to-life penalty were incarcerated after committing petty thefts; others had lifelong histories of mental illness or retardation; still others suffered from debilitating drug addictions for which they could get no treatment.14 The secretiveness that characterizes the operation of our country’s prisons has prevented the public from knowing what goes on behind the walls. Many prisons have rigid rules and procedures for preventing journalists from seeing, recording, or photographing prisoners.15 The United States has increasingly turned to the criminal justice system as a solution to the social, health, and economic problems of the disadvantaged in our large cities. The most striking result has been the huge increase in the nation’s overall jail and prison population. The same hostile and punitive impulses that led our country toward accepting higher and higher incarceration rates have also fueled support for increasingly punitive approaches within the criminal justice system. In 1970, there were about 200,000 Americans in prison. Today, a 500 percent increase in prisoner population leaves the country with 1.3 million people in pris13 Peter Sussman, “Media on Prisons: Censorship and Stereotypes.” In Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, eds., Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. New York: The New Press, 2003. 14 Sussman, “Media on Prisons,” p. 269. 15 Sussman, “Media on Prisons,” p. 258.

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ons and about 700,000 in jails, making for a total of about 2 million. At no time in human history has there been such a sustained increase in the use of incarceration as a means of punitive social control.16 By concentrating on the crimes of the underprivileged minority races, we have ignored the socioeconomic and health problems underlying their deviant behavior.17 Worst of all, many Americans have used people of color as scapegoats, thereby increasing their suffering. Instead of providing them with the health, educational, psychiatric, and drug-treatment resources they need, we have punished them by sending them off to suffer in overcrowded, concentration-camplike penal institutions. (For more on scapegoating, see Chapter 6.) Today, nearly one-third of young black men are in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.18 The punishment of people of color, by the criminal justice system and elsewhere, adds to their resentment of society, confirms them in their role as scapegoats, and helps to solidify their identity as criminals. Recent US policies of mass incarceration rival the policies of the Nazis in supporting mass arrests, rampant racism, and ongoing abuse inflicted on lawbreakers and their families. The period of mass incarceration (the “tough on crime” era) coincided with the gradual repeal of welfare legislation. The Reagan-Bush (the elder Bush) era of national leadership ushered in a shift in crime and welfare policy consistent with the conservative commitment to reduce the role of “big government.” Punishing and incarcerating criminal offenders rather than providing public programs for helping with the economic and health problems of the urban poor became official policy.19 Another cause of the mass incarceration over the past thirty-five years is the lack of public psychiatric resources in local communities. Because of this lack, more and more of the seriously mentally ill are entering the criminal justice system. The deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals that took place about forty years ago was powered by federal legislation that shifted care of the mentally ill from public state hospitals to local communities. The introduction of new antipsychotic medications also drove the deinstitutionalization movement. What went wrong with this new system of local community care of the mentally ill? The necessary community resources such as social services, vocational rehabilitation, and psychiatric treatment services were not developed to any16 Todd R. Clear, “The Problem of ‘Addition by Subtraction’: The Prison-Crime Relationship in Low-Income Communities.” In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment, pp. 181–103. 17 Beth E. Richie, “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration on Women,” pp. 136–149. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment. 18 Tonry, Thinking About Crime. 19 Teresa A. Miller, “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Immigration Policy,” pp. 214–238. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment.

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where near the needed capacity. As a result of this lack of care at the community level, many of the seriously mentally ill either became homeless or they went to jail, usually for drug or property offenses. While this deinstitutionalization has brought about a huge decrease in the numbers of psychiatric beds, an unforeseen consequence has been a nearly proportional increase in the numbers of seriously mentally ill patients being housed in jails and prisons. Following deinstitutionalization, the number of state hospital beds decreased by more than ninety percent in about forty years. Meanwhile, the number of mentally ill in jails and prisons has increased geometrically. Since about 1960, jails and prisons have become the new institutions for many patients with severe mental disorders. Other seriously disturbed mentally ill individuals are left to fend for themselves as homeless and poor street people.

THE WAR ON DRUGS AND MASS INCARCERATION Another important cause of the mass incarceration and resultant overcrowding in jails and prisons has been America’s war on drugs. In the 1980s, thanks in large part to this “war,” the US prison and jail population doubled, outpacing efforts to house inmates. By 1990, fifty-four percent of prisoners in federal institutions were doing time for drug offenses.20 Dr. John Raha, a former director of Cermak Health Services, which provides health care at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, criticized the incarceration of drug users because of the lack of “any demonstrated individual or social benefit.”21 Most other experts in this field would agree with Dr. Raha and extend his criticism to apply to nearly all prisoners who are in prison for nonviolent crimes. For them, as well as the drug users, there is no “demonstrated individual or social benefit” from their incarceration. More than a million people are serving time in jails and prisons for nonviolent offenses, and most of their crimes are drug-related. The cost to the public of caring for these prisoners is about $9.4 billion a year.22 Another factor making a major contribution to the overcrowding in prisons is the increase in the length of prison sentences in recent decades. During the

20 Andrew A. Skolnick, “Some Experts Suggest the Nation’s ‘War on Drugs’ Is Helping Tuberculosis Stage a Deadly Comeback.” Journal of the American Medical Association 268:3177– 3178, 1992. 21 Skolnick, “Nation’s ‘War on Drugs’ Is Helping Tuberculosis Stage a Deadly Comeback,” p. 3177. 22 Sasha Abramsky, “The Drug War Goes Up in Smoke.” The Nation 277:25–29, Aug. 18/25, 2003.

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1970s and 1980s, the average length of prison sentences for serious crimes more than tripled.23 Incarceration contributes little or nothing therapeutic to the drug offender and does much to the offender that is psychologically damaging. In addition to the multiple other stresses and punishments of prison life, those prisoners who are serving time for drug offenses usually exist in a prison environment where many kinds of drugs, from pot to heroin, are readily available. Inmate John Allen stated that any and all drugs were available in Lorton Central Prison. “If you’re on heroin, you can buy heroin, cocaine, PCP and a number of other drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, drug store drugs — anything you want is here.”24 Inmates and officers at Lorton Central Prison estimate that seventy-five percent of the prison’s population use illegal drugs.25 Researchers have published numerous studies showing that it costs far less to place a drug addict in treatment than to incarcerate him in prison. Treatment is more effective than incarceration at lowering both addiction and crime rates.26 The inpatient or outpatient treatment of offenders who suffer from drug and/or alcohol addiction or abuse is more effectively and efficiently done in their home community outpatient or inpatient treatment facilities. Such treatment is much less costly and is a more humane and nonviolent alternative to punitive incarceration. Typically, such treatment involves some initial short-term inpatient treatment followed by a longer period of outpatient care. Halfway houses are often helpful in the recovery process, as are twelve-step programs (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous). Both the so-called war on drugs and the overcrowding in our prisons are helping tuberculosis stage a deadly comeback. In recent decades there have been too many deadly outbreaks of a highly lethal multi-drug-resistant TB in a number of prisons. The physician Dr. John Raha commented that “By cramming more people who are immunocompromised into tremendously overcrowded facilities that were not built to provide the ventilation needed for preventing the spread of respiratory diseases, we have set the table for a terrible dinner of tuberculosis to serve the public.”27 Public-education material distributed by the Canadian government criticizes the “mass incarceration” programs in the US: 23 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 67. 24 Author Robert Blecker quotes inmate John Allen in “Haven or Hell? Inside Lorton Central Prison: Experiences of Punishment Justified.” Stanford Law Review 42:1149–1249, 1990. 25 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1190. 26 Abramsky, “Drug War Goes Up in Smoke,” p. 29. 27 Skolnick, “Nation’s ‘War on Drugs’ Is Helping Tuberculosis Stage a Deadly Comeback,” p. 3177.

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Chapter 4. Punishments and Perils in Today’s Prisons One only has to look at the experience of the United States to see that relying solely on incarceration is a ‘dead end’ street. The American incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world, but it has not made the United States a safer place to live. The murder rate in the United States at 6.7 per 100,000 surpasses that of every other industrialized country in the world. Canada’s murder rate by comparison is barely two per 100,000. The United States is a good example of what happens when governments rely too heavily on incarceration. . . . When you consider that 1.6 million Americans are now behind bars; that four states spend more than $1 billion each year on correction; that investing in education has taken a backseat to locking people up in California — then you understand why the government has adopted a made-in-Canada approach.28

Vivien Stern compares the harsh punitive approach in the US with the more benign and humane approaches in nearly all other Western countries. While rehabilitation efforts have diminished in the US in recent decades, other English-speaking countries are intensifying their rehabilitation efforts. Similarly, a number of European countries have devised alternatives to incarceration. Even in China and Japan, where harsh approaches to treating prisoners are traditional, steps toward humanization are being taken. Japanese prisons are relaxing the enforcement of archaic rules prohibiting eye contact and conversation.29 The unprecedented rise in the use of imprisonment in the United States in recent decades has presented a model to other nations of a society committed to the use of punishment and incarceration as the primary, and sometimes the only, method of crime control. Europeans are shocked at the high and rising rate of incarceration in the US, now about 700 per 100,000 of the population, and they compare America’s rate with the rate (less than 100 per 100,000) in the Western European countries. Only a few extreme right-wing political parties in Europe favor the harsh and punitive methods characteristic of US prisons.

PRISONS ARE DANGEROUS PLACES Incarceration prevents the offender from committing crimes outside of the prison, but not inside the prison. Often prison inmates repeat the same types of crimes they formerly committed on the street, selling drugs, using drugs, stealing, and the like.30 Professor of law Robert Blecker writes: “Inside the prison . . . crime — the sale and possession of narcotics, theft, assault, and murder — is rampant.”31 28 Vivien Stern, “The International Aspect of U.S. Policies,” pp. 279–292. In Mauer and ChesneyLind, Invisible Punishment, p. 282. Stern quotes the “Public Education, Speaker’s Kit, Module 5, Incarceration” section at the Web site of the Correctional Service of Canada, www.cscscc.gelca. 29 Stern, “The International Aspect of U.S. Policies,” pp. 284–286. 30 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1191. 31 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1192.

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Consider the desperate plight of the prisoner caught between two powerful and potentially dangerous adversaries: the other prisoners and the guards. If he displeases the guards, he faces retaliation from them. Even more fearsome are his relations with other inmates — if he snitches or in other ways breaks the prisoners’ code, he faces their swift punitive response and possibly even execution. Homicide is much more frequent in prisons than in the general population. For example, thirty-five inmates in California prisons were murdered by other prisoners in one year, 1970.32 More prisoners are killed by other prisoners than are executed by the state. Prison riots are fairly frequent and a cause of death for many prisoners and a few guards. In February of 1980, a riot broke out in the New Mexico Penitentiary at Santa Fe that led to the death of thirty-three prisoners. In 1991, a very violent riot in Attica Prison in New York State resulted in forty-three deaths (mainly of prisoners). Overcrowding and racism in both the Santa Fe and the Attica prisons played an important role in instigating these conflagrations. At the time of the Attica riot, the average educational level of Attica guards was seventh grade. In contrast, the prisoners averaged ten to eleven years of formal schooling.33 The food at Attica was deplorable and the level of both medical and psychiatric care was grossly inadequate. Prisoners were addressed by the guards in derogatory language; blacks were referred to as “niggers” and “boys.”34

GANG FIGHTS On both the East and West coasts, and in some places in between, prisons often are the unwelcome battleground for violent fights between gangs. The writer and former prison guard Ted Conover describes an inmate, Toussaint, a charismatic young leader of the Sing Sing chapter of the Bloods, a gang of blacks. One day, just before going to his assigned work area, Conover and the other guards witnessed a videotape of the fight the day before between the Bloods, led by Toussaint, and the Latin Kings (an Hispanic gang). The videotape showed

thirty or forty seconds of inmates massing, running and stabbing, attacking and fleeing. The story was that the Latin Kings had a score to settle with the Bloods. Their fighters had gotten to the yard first, armed with “shanks” [knives], and taken positions along the fence. The Bloods had known a fight was going to happen, known they were outnumbered, but had gone out anyway. They were clustered near the yard door when the

32 Reid H. Montgomery, “Homicide,” pp. 244–246. In Marilyn D. McShane and Frank P.Williams III, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, 1996, p. 245. 33 William Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible? The Washington State Experience in the Sixties. Tacoma, WA: Unique Press, 1990, p. 109. 34 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 109.

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Chapter 4. Punishments and Perils in Today’s Prisons Kings attacked, stabbing numerous Bloods and sustaining lesser injuries in the process.35

The Bloods, originally from Los Angeles, were a feared and growing presence in New York City at the time. Membership followed a strict policy of “blood in, blood out.” Prospective members had to slash someone to get into the gang, and leaving was not possible without getting cut up yourself.36 Inmate Toussaint agreed to tell the guards what “Bloods” meant. On a piece of scrap paper, he wrote B-L-O-O-D in block letters. Then he wrote what the letters stood for: “Brotherly Love Overrides Oppression and Distraction.” Then, to lessen the tension between the Bloods and Latin Kings gangs, the prison officials at Sing Sing took Toussaint away to another New York state prison.

THE VIOLENCE OF PRISON RAPE In addition to the legal punishments such as incarceration and the deprivations inflicted upon prisoners, there is another harsh and extremely destructive kind of violence the prisoners frequently inflict on each other, namely rape. Though this violence is not mandated by the laws regulating the care of prisoners, it is nonetheless, as psychiatrist Dr. J. Gilligan notes, a “predictable consequence of our policies and punishments . . . prison conditions often tolerate [or] even exacerbate the inmates’ pre-existing potential for violence. In fact, the very conditions that occur regularly in most prisons may force prisoners to engage in acts of serious violence in order to avoid being mutilated, raped, or murdered themselves.”37 Heterosexual deprivation and frustration leads to increased kinds of violence, both within the prison and later, after prisoners are released back into the community. Dr. Gilligan reminds us that over ninety percent of prisoners are released and less than ten percent spend their remaining lifetime in prison.38 For many of these men, the heterosexual deprivation has the meaning of a humiliating emasculation.39 But in America’s prisons, the shame accrued from heterosexual deprivation is almost always added to the shame of homosexual rape. Homosexual rape is a horrendous and destructive form of punishment endemic to American prisons. For example, in one prison holding about 700 inmates, all of the prisoners except for about half a dozen men engage in some form or other of regular sexual 35 Ted Conover, New Jack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Vintage Books, 2002, p. 166. 36 Conover, New Jack, p. 167. 37 Gilligan, Violence, p. 163. 38 Gilligan, Violence, p. 164. 39 Gilligan, Violence, p. 164.

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encounter with others. The prison administration derived this knowledge from direct observation of the men, because in that prison an “observation gallery” overlooks every cell in the three tiers so correction officers can observe what goes on within each and every cell.40 Dr. Gilligan presents a persuasive argument for finding the criminal justice system responsible for these terribly denigrating homosexual rapes. Prison authorities know about the existence and near-universality of rape in prisons and do not, as a rule, do anything about it. Legal authorities such as judges and prosecutors who send people to prisons are aware of the existence and widespread prevalence of prison rape. This is one reason many of the more conscientious and humane judges are reluctant to send any males to prisons except when they feel compelled to do so by the violence of the crime committed or by the laws requiring mandatory prison sentences. One of the most egregious, abusive, and destructive actions of the criminal justice system is its implicit collusion in the homosexual rape of millions of men in our jails and prisons. First, the criminal justice system provides the conditions that stimulate such rapes by its enforced deprivation of other sources of self-esteem, respect, power, and sexual gratification. These harsh conditions are deliberately imposed on prisoners both by legal authorities and by prison officers and guards. Secondly, the criminal justice system is culpable because, as James Gilligan writes, All these authorities tacitly and knowingly tolerate this form of sexual violence, passively delegating to the dominant and most violent inmates the power and authority to deliver this form of punishment to the more submissive and nonviolent ones, so that the rapists in this situation are acting as the vicarious enforcers of a form of punishment that the legal system does not itself enforce formally and directly.41

Two kinds of male homosexual rapes occur in prisons and jails today. The first is an overtly violent rape (usually sodomy) of one man by one or more men. The second and much more frequent type of rape is linked with a covert kind of coercion in which the dominant partner, through threats or other coercive means, frightens another inmate into becoming the submissive partner in a form of arranged “marriage.” Many inmates “agree” to sexual acts only because they fear that refusal will lead to a beating, to being stabbed, and/or to being violently raped. According to one inmate at Lorton Central Prison, the majority of first-timer males that come into that prison are coerced into having sex with other inmates.42 The male 40 Gilligan, Violence, p. 164. 41 Gilligan, Violence, p. 166. 42 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1157.

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prisoner who is raped faces a painful dilemma. If he does reveal the rape to the guards, he will probably be punished, even killed, by other prisoners for breaking the inmate’s code — a protocol requiring prisoners to remain quiet on such matters. According to the psychiatrist Dr. Kupers, the lives of many prisoners have been destroyed by being raped in prison.43 Prison rapes of either men or women have long-term traumatic effects, including suicide, psychiatric decompensation, and depression. After the victims of prison rape are released from prison, many turn to drugs, crime, or prostitution. Another long-term effect of the trauma of prison rape is the familiar defensive dynamic of identification with the aggressor, as shown in the following case vignette. When applied to persons who have been traumatized by someone else, the term identification with the aggressor refers to the victim’s identification with his persecutor’s violent deed. The victim may then act out this mainly unconscious identification by victimizing another person in much the same way as he has been victimized. Dr. Kupers tells the story of a twenty-five-year-old African American who worked in a halfway house for individuals with chronic and severe mental illness. He was discovered pressuring vulnerable women patients into having sex with him. Also, he often confronted male residents at the halfway house, as well as strangers on the street, demanding they stop staring at him or fight him. This young man had been repeatedly raped in prison and he was now unconsciously repeating his trauma by victimizing other people.44 It is even more difficult to estimate the incidence of rape in women’s prisons because the women inmates fear that male guards (who commit almost all the rapes of women in prisons) will retaliate if the women inform the authorities.

SUPERMAXIMUM-CUSTODY PRISONS Supermaximum-custody (“maxi-maxi”) prisons are being constructed in increasing numbers in this country, despite the repeated warnings of the psychic damage they do to many inmates. These cold, metallic fortresses are touted as being the cutting edge in corrections facilities. Their sponsors claim they serve a critical function in housing the most troublesome and violent prisoners. Incarceration in a supermaximum facility entails spending months — sometimes years — in a narrow, monotonous, gray metallic room containing a toilet, a shower, and a cot. Prisoners are allowed out of their cell for an hour each day 43 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 154. 44 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 155.

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to exercise alone in a small cage enclosed by a wire net. There is almost no human contact between inmates or between guards and inmates. Prisoners’ food is thrust through a slot in the metal door to their cell and brief impersonal orders are communicated to them through metallic speakers. Early in my professional career I participated in research studies on the effects of sensory and social isolation on an individual’s emotional and mental wellbeing. A variety of investigations performed in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated the severe deleterious psychological effects isolation has on an individual’s mental health. Prolonged isolation often causes hallucinations and psychoses, as well as other emotional disturbances. In his foreword to Dr. T. Kupers’ book Prison Madness, Hans Toch wrote: “The most extreme punitive confinement — such as supermaximum isolation — most heavily taxes limited coping competence, and leads to points of no return. Symptoms of mental illness proliferate, and prison cells become filled with prisoners who have withdrawn from painful reality and quietly hallucinate.”45 One prisoner who spent two years in a supermaximum unit describes his experience as both deadening and terrifying:

It’s the SHU [supermaximum unit] that makes me this nervous. There’s nothing like this at other prisons. Here I feel like I’m in a kennel, closed off from life itself. I feel like I live in a coffin, like a tomb [he put his hand to his heart], there’s no signs of life around here. At other prisons I could see some form of life out of the window. Here, you don’t see none of that. That’s had an effect on me over the years since I’ve been here . . . Here you don’t see nothing, just concrete. You never see the sun. In the pod you can’t even see the sun through the skylight from your cell. . . . There’s a lot of people going crazy.46

One of the most shocking things about the recent construction of supermaximum facilities is that, prior to their construction, there was abundant evidence that prolonged isolation from other people often causes serious psychological damage, even psychosis. Incontrovertible evidence comes from what happened in the nineteenth century in prisons that isolated prisoners, and later from the research I noted above. An exceptionally cruel prison superintendent, Elam Lynds, in 1821 placed eighty hardened convicts in solitary confinement around the clock in Auburn Prison in New York State. This harsh type of confinement was later stopped because the experiment failed — too many prisoners became psychotic, committed suicide, or died from illness.47

45 Hans Toch, “Foreword,” pp. ix–xiii. In Kupers, Prison Madness, .p. xii. 46 Kupers, Prison Madness, pp. 55–56. 47 Elmer H. Johnson, “Auburn Systems,” pp. 46–49. In McShane and Williams, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, 1996, p. 47.

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The system at Auburn was named “the silent system” because prisoners were not allowed to talk with each other at any time. The French citizens Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, who visited Auburn Prison in 1838, wrote this description of the prison’s deadening stillness at night: “The silence within these walls . . . [was] that of death. . . . [We] felt as if we traversed catacombs; there were a thousand living beings, and yet it was a desert solitude.”48 A similar type of social isolation with twenty-four-hour confinement was instituted in the Western Pennsylvania Prison with results as tragic as those occurring at the Auburn Prison. This isolating system, like the others, was abandoned because of the mental casualties caused by the extreme isolation.49 A third example of the dreadfully damaging effects of extreme social isolation during incarceration comes from an English prison during the nineteenth century. The prison at Petonville used the “separate” system first devised in the US During the time they used this system there were twenty times more cases of mental illness than in any other prison in England.50 Attorney Martha Duncan describes the use of what was called the separate system in a Pennsylvania prison in the nineteenth century, a system in which prisoners were kept apart from each other both day and night. “On occasions when they had to venture from their cells, the prisoners in the separate system wore dark hoods with only two holes cut for their eyes. By this means they were prevented from recognizing and contaminating each other.”51 Duncan’s interpretation of the separate system is that there was “a fanatical striving after purity that implies, by its very fanaticism, an attraction to the opposing qualities of dirtiness and defilement.”52 An additional interpretation I propose would be that, by covering their faces, the prison was enacting a dehumanizing attempt to rob their prisoners of their identity as persons — they became people without faces. In recent years a number of psychiatrists have studied what happens to prisoners when they are placed in supermaximum prisons. The psychiatrist Dr. Kupers, author of Prison Madness, wrote: “Every prisoner placed in an environment as stressful as a supermaximum unit, whether especially prone to mental break-

48 Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application to France, trans. Frances Leeber. New York: A. M. Kelley, 1970, p. 32. Reprint of the 1833 edition. 49 Betsy White, “John Haviland 1782–1852,” pp. 228–230. In McShane and Williams, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York: Garland, 1996, p. 229–230. 50 Martha Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, Beloved Passions: The Unconscious Meanings of Crime and Punishment. New York: New York University Press, 1996, p. 176. 51 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 175. 52 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 175.

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down or seemingly very sane, eventually begins to lose touch with reality and exhibits some signs and symptoms of psychiatric decompensation.”53 The psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Grassian examined a large number of prisoners during their incarceration in supermaximum units and concluded that such units tend to produce severe mental disorders, including psychosis. Symptoms include massive anxiety, hallucinations, perceptual distortions, acute confusional states, difficulty with memory and concentration, and other problems. Dr. Grassian called this group of symptoms “The SHU syndrome.” He compared the mental state of these prisoners to the mental state produced by environmental sensory and social deprivation experiments conducted in the 1950s and 1960s.54 Dr. Kupers cites the work of Grassian and includes a list of articles written by Grassian and others about the damaging effects of isolation.55 Supermaximum units contain a disproportionate number of mentally ill prisoners. In all the supermaximum units Dr. Kupers has toured, between onethird and one-half of the prisoners suffer from a serious mental disorder. Often, emotionally disturbed patients are placed in these units not because they are especially violent but because the guards want them segregated from the other less-disturbed inmates. Then, because of the extraordinary stresses and psychosis-inducing environment of their solitary existence, the prisoners become more disturbed and frequently overtly psychotic. If some malicious architect designed a place and a system to drive a person crazy, it would be much like the supermaximum units in our American prisons. One modern prison with extreme social isolation features similar to the nineteenth-century isolation systems is the Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum security prison in California. This prison was designed to manage some of the most violent criminals in the California prison system, and it is based on extreme, around-the-clock isolation of prisoners from virtually all human contact. In the summer of 2001, about 600 inmates at the Pelican Bay Prison stopped eating. They were protesting the conditions in the supermaximum unit where prisoners are locked up for twenty-three hours out of twenty-four in a barren concrete cell measuring 7½ by 11 feet. In this supermaximum unit, as in most others, the cells are arrayed in lines radiating out like spokes from a central control hub, so that no prisoner can see another human being. Some inmates are kept in 53 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 56. Italics are mine. 54 Kupers, Prison Madness, pp. 56–57. 55 Stuart Grassian, “The SHU Syndrome: Psychopathological Effects of Solitary Confinement,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 140(11):1450–1454, 1983; Stuart Grassian and Nancy Friedman, “Effects of Sensory Deprivation in Psychiatric Seclusion and Solitary Confinement,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 8:49–65, 1986; Sheilagh Hodgins and Gilles Côté, “The Mental Health of Penitentiary Inmates in Isolation,” Canadian Journal of Criminology, 175–182, 1991. These articles are listed on p. 278 of Kupers’ book, Prison Madness.

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isolation even for the one hour each day that they are allowed to go to a small enclosed space to exercise.56 In the large supermaximum prisons of Texas, correctional bureaucrats have devised a systematically humiliating and indeed dehumanizing regimen of punishment for prisoners who elsewhere would more likely be considered emotionally disturbed. Prisoners who don’t return their food trays are punished by being given only a “food loaf” made up of all of the day’s food ground together. The prisoners who won’t wear their clothes are punished by being forced to wear paper gowns.57 Author Sasha Abramsky quotes Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch: “The moral critique is: Secure-housing [supermaximum] units have been designed, at the least, with utter disregard for human misery. At the worst, it’s a deliberate use of human misery for deterrence and punishment.”58 At least 42,000 prisoners in the United States are housed in these atrocious crazy-making supermaximum units. Texas, in 2000, boasted of having sixteen supermax prisons and supermaximum units housing 10,000 inmates.59 The federal government has also opened supermaximum units for women, as have several states, including California. In addition to all the stresses encountered by male prisoners in supermaximum units, women housed in such units are also confronted with frequent voyeurism and sexual harassment by the mainly male staff.60 But a more fundamental reason why prison authorities should not use supermaximum units for women is because very few women prisoners pose a risk of physical violence to others.

INVISIBLE POST-INCARCERATION PUNISHMENTS Not all the punishments inflicted on felons are visible and not all are carried out during the prisoners’ incarceration. So-called “invisible punishments” are inflicted on nearly all prisoners following their incarceration.61 The book Invisible Punishment provides the first comprehensive examination of what has been termed “invisible punishment” in order to describe the effects of policies that have transformed family and community dynamics, exacerbated racial divisions, and posed fundamental questions of citizenship in a democratic society.

56 Sasha Abramsky, “Return of the Madhouse,” p. 26. The American Prospect 13:26–29, 2002. 57 Abramsky, “Return of the Madhouse,” p. 28–29. 58 Abramsky, “Return of the Madhouse,” p. 29. 59 Abramsky, “Return of the Madhouse,” p. 26. 60 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 57. 61 Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, eds., Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. New York: New Press, 2003.

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Jeremy Travis examines punishments of criminals that are nearly invisible. Chief among these are the punishment that is carried out by the deprivation of the privileges and rights of citizenship and legal residency in the United States. These laws operate largely outside of public view, and they have serious and prolonged adverse consequences for the individuals affected. These punishments are imposed by the operation of the laws rather than by any decision of the sentencing judge.62 Most of these new invisible punishments were enacted into law in the last thirty years. This new wave of invisible punishments chips away at the essential structures of the support system of poor people in this country. “Under these new laws, offenders can be denied public housing, welfare benefits, the mobility necessary to access jobs that require driving, child support, parental rights, the ability to obtain an education.”63 Many of these hidden punishments are lifelong. They have become instruments for scapegoating and for social exclusion because they create a permanent low social status for convicted felons. For example, there are now seven states where lifetime bans on voting by felons mean that about twenty-five percent of African-American men are permanently disenfranchised. In this brave new world, punishment for the original offense is no longer enough; one’s debt to society is never paid.64

62 Jeremy Travis, “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion,” pp. 15–36. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment, p. 15. 63 Travis, “Invisible Punishment,” p. 18. 64 Travis, “Invisible Punishment,” p. 19.

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CHAPTER 5. PRISONS ARE “FACTORIES OF CRIME” The many punishments inflicted on incarcerated prisoners do not deter them from committing more crimes, but instead tend to cause them to commit more crimes. Evidence for the failure of the prison system to correct or rehabilitate prisoners is the high recidivism rate. According to Dr. Kupers, the recidivism rate for all inmates is sixty-three percent in the three years following their release; for ex-prisoners suffering from serious mental disorders, the recidivism rate is over eighty percent.1 High recidivism rates and corroborative evaluations of prisons and prisoners made by scholars and informed professional persons both support the hypothesis that prisons cause more crime than they prevent. In what follows, I shall present brief summaries and quotations from some respected and informed persons who have reached the same or similar conclusions I have come to: that prisons are “Factories of Crime.” In a report on Dr. Conte’s prison reforms in the State of Washington, Newsweek magazine said, “Historically, the nation’s penitentiaries have functioned not as institutions of rehabilitation, but rather as what the attorney Ramsey Clark calls ‘factories of crime.’ ”2 In writing his history of “The Progressive Era” of American prisons (1900– 1930), Dean Champion of Minot State University observed that incarceration was believed to be conducive to further criminality. Any means whereby con1 Kupers. Prison Madness, p. 87. 2 Newsweek, November 1, 1971. The above quotation is from Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 148. Ramsey Clark was appointed Attorney General by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Conte’s book does not give a page number for this quotation from Newsweek.

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victed offenders could be diverted from incarceration were used to save the offenders from the criminogenic effects of prisons and jails.3

“A SHOCKING LEVEL OF FAILURE” In 1973, a US government–sponsored National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals declared that prisons should be repudiated as useless for any purpose other than locking up criminals who are too dangerous to be allowed at large in a free society. The Commission recommended that no new prisons should be built and that all existing penal institutions for juveniles should be closed. This report concluded that “The prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking level of failure.”4

“IMPRISONMENT IS AN EXPENSIVE WAY OF MAKING BAD PEOPLE WORSE” The British government publicly declared that “imprisonment is an expensive way of making bad people worse.”5 The eminent American psychoanalyst Dr. Edith Jacobson noted that for most common criminals, imprisonment tends to have harmful effects, aggravating an already infantile personality. During the 1930s she observed one hundred women prisoners during her own two years of confinement in a State Prison in Germany.6 The American psychoanalyst and author Dr. Karl Menninger, in his book The Crime of Punishment, made frequent comments on the damaging effects of incarceration.7 What follows are quotations from his book:

The criminal justice’s system, far from bringing justice actually does its opposite.8

3 Dean Champion, “The Progressive Era,” pp. 237–239. In McShane and Williams, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 239. 4 David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 132. The quotation is from the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, A National Strategy to Reduce Crime: Final Report. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 358 and 597. 5 Garland, The Culture of Control, p. 132. The Garland quote is from a publication by the Home Office, Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public. London: HMSO, 1990. 6 Edith Jacobson. “Observations on the Psychological Effect of Imprisonment on Female Political Prisoners,” p. 341. In Kurt Eissler, ed., Searchlights on Delinquency. New York: International Universities Press, 1949. Dr. Jacobson made all of her observations between 1935 and 1938 during her incarceration in a German State Penitentiary. In contrast to the Nazi concentration camps, state prisons at that time were not under the control of the Gestapo. Dr. Jacobson later immigrated to the United States and practiced in New York City. 7 Karl Menninger, The Crime of Punishment. New York: Viking, 1968. 8 Menninger, The Crime of Punishment, p. 11.

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Chapter 5. Prisons are “Factories of Crime” Our barbaric system of dealing with delinquency produces only more delinquency.9 The system is an obsolete, ineffective and crime-breeding system — rather than a crime-preventative system”10 Our city jails and inhuman reformatories and wretched prisons are jammed. They are known to be unhealthy, filthy, dangerous, immoral, indecent criminal-breeding dens of inequity.11

Since Menninger’s time, conditions in US jails and prisons have gone from bad to worse, in part because of the overcrowding and the renewed and vindictive emphasis on punishment that began shortly after Menninger’s book was published. Today there are over four times as many prisoners — in total about two million — in America’s jails and prisons as there were when Menninger published his book in 1968. Sing Sing’s most famous warden, Thomas Osborne, understood the destructiveness of prison life. He said, “I believe every man in this place hates and detests the system under which he lives. . . . He hates it because he knows it is bad; for it tends to crush slowly but irresistibly the good in himself.”12 The renowned American theologian Walter Wink wrote, “The criminal justice system not only is a school for crime; it actually molds people’s souls into the very identity prisons are supposed to make them denounce.”13 See Chapter 7 of this book for an in-depth discussion and explanation of how the punishments and the toxic interpersonal relations of prison life cause prisoners to develop a negative identity as criminals. Many informed people know that prisoners leave prison more angry, embittered, and a greater risk to society than they were on admission.14 Washington State Representative William S. Leckenby wrote, “It is crazy for us to allow those institutions [prisons] to carry on with practices that border on abuse and intimidation. It is crazy because we can predict that people who are treated with

9 Menninger, The Crime of Punishment, p. 18. 10 Menninger, The Crime of Punishment, p. 34. 11 Menninger, The Crime of Punishment, p. 143. 12 Conover. New Jack, p. 197. 13 Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992, p. 202. 14 Authors who claim that prisoners leave prison worse off than when they enter prison include: Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 35; Margaret Talbot, “Catch and Release,” Atlantic Monthly 291(1):97–100, February 1, 2003; Conover. New Jack, p. 318. The journalist Ted Conover, who spent one year working as a guard and then wrote the book New Jack about his prison experiences, asserts, “We pay billions of dollars a year in this country to run institutions that few would argue leave the people who go through them – inmates and officers alike – worse off in many ways than they were when they went in.” Italics are mine.

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abuse and intimidation will come back into society in bad shape. They’ll be angry or scared or equipped to engage in some sort of violence.”15 One expert who has an unusual and penetrating insight into the destructive effects of the punishment of incarceration is the psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan, whose lengthy professional career as a prison psychiatrist provided him with a rare opportunity to study the effects of punishment. Dr. Gilligan wrote that the punishment of incarceration often leads to the aggravation of violence and its repetition, rather than as a deterrent to further crime.16 I agree with Dr. Gilligan’s conclusion that an absolute prerequisite for the healing of violent men is a humane and nonpunitive environment.17 He believes as I do that punishment does not inhibit or prevent violence; rather, punishment causes violence.18

THE “FUTILITY OF PAST PUNITIVE MEASURES” Robert A. Freeman, Assistant Superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary wrote, “Today, overwhelming evidence shows the futility of past punitive measures, while all evidence grows to support the theory that by careful diagnosis and treatment of criminals, crime can be abated.”19 In a footnote in her book on prisons and prisoners, attorney Martha Duncan lists articles and books that claim or suggest that prisons generate more crime.20 It reads:

For the suggestion that prisons actually generate crime, see Johannes Andenaes, Punishment and Deterrence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974), 179; Peter Low, John Jeffries and Richard Bonnie, Criminal Law, 2nd ed. (Mineola, NY: Foundation Press, 1986), 27 (“[M]uch of the recent criminological literature includes claims that ‘prisons breed crime’ ”); Robert Blecker, “Heaven or Hell? Inside Lorton Central Prison: Experiences of Punishment Justified,” Stanford Law Review 42 (1990):1194–95 (quoting prisoners who assert that doing time makes a person more dangerous upon release).

The author Lee Griffith stated that “the problem is that prisons are identical in spirit to the violence and murder they pretend to combat. . . . Whenever we cage people, we are in reality fueling and participating in the same spirit we claim to

15 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 9. 16 Gilligan, Violence, p. 6. 17 Gilligan, Violence, p. 51. 18 Gilligan, Violence, p. 184. 19 In Conte’s Is Prison Reform Possible? at page 45, Conte quotes Freeman’s article[ no title or page number given] in the Washington State Department of Institutions publication Perspective, for June 1957. Italics are mine. 20 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 222.

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renounce. In the biblical understanding, the spirit of the prison is the spirit of death.”21 According to Mark Olson, “To think that slamming people behind bars, breaking their spirits, and destroying their souls could do anything other than lead to more evil is the ultimate naïveté. 22

“THIS IS A CRIME FACTORY” An inmate at Lorton Central Prison, Itchy Brooks, said, “You come here for stealing a car, you leave here knowing how to crack a safe . . . this is a crime factory.”23 According to the theologian Christopher D. Marshall, prison fosters the corrupt and violent behavior it purports to control, then returns the violence to the streets when the prisoner is released. A vicious cycle is established in which crime provokes punishment, punishment entrenches crime, and repeated crimes demand more and more punishment.24 The French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote, “In 1820 it was already understood that the prisons, far from transforming criminals into honest citizens, serve only to manufacture new criminals and to drive existing criminals even deeper into criminality. . . . Prisons manufactured delinquents, but delinquents turned out to be useful, in the economic domain as much as the political.” He added, “The moment someone went to prison a mechanism came into operation that stripped him of his civil status, and when he came out he could do nothing except become a criminal once again.”25

THE “FAILURE OF TODAY’S CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM” One recent critic of our prisons and jails is the California psychiatrist Dr. Terry Kupers. He has served as an expert witness in more than a dozen classaction lawsuits regarding the harmful conditions of prison confinement and the 21 Lee Griffith, The Fall of the Prison: Biblical Perspectives on Prison Abolition. Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans, 1993, p. 106. Italics in original. 22 Mark Olson, “The God Who Dared.” The Other Side 26(3):15, 1990. 23 Blecker. “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1194. The inmate Itchy Brooks called his prison a “crime factory” about twenty years after Attorney General Ramsey Clark called prisons “factories of crime.” It is possible that the uneducated prisoner, Itchy Brooks, had read what Clark said, but I doubt it. 24 Christopher D. Marshall, Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment. Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans, 2001, p. 107. Italics are mine. Marshall teaches at the Tyndale Graduate School of Theology in Auckland, New Zealand, and he serves in a voluntary capacity as a restorative justice facilitator. 25 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon, 1980, pp. 40–42.

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adequacy of mental health services in jails and prisons. His book, Prison Madness, succeeds in revealing “the horror, the injustice, the brutality, the senselessness, the incredible waste of taxpayers’ money, the ineffectiveness and the failure of today’s correctional systems — for all prisoners, but especially for those suffering from serious mental disorders.”26

DISCUSSION For over a hundred years advocates of incarceration have been saying that prisons correct (hence the term correctional facilities), reform (hence the term reformatory), or rehabilitate their inmates. However, as nearly all scientists, attorneys, theologians, criminologists, guards, inmates, wardens, psychiatrists, sociologists, psychoanalysts, and others who have written about prisons affirm, these institutions, with few exceptions, do not correct, reform, or rehabilitate prisoners. Both prisoners and guards at Lorton Central Prison estimate that less than five percent of prisoners in Lorton are rehabilitated.27 American prisons cannot fail to produce criminals and they do so by the unnatural, punitive, and dangerous existence they impose on their inmates. Prisons also produce criminals by imposing oppressive and stressful restraints on inmates. Prisons are supposed to apply the law and to teach respect for the law. Actually, the opposite usually occurs. The traumatogenic conditions of prisons engender instead a defiant hatred and disrespect for the laws and those individuals and institutions who enforce the laws. The prison environment contributes enormously to the inmates’ feelings of injustice. These feelings, in addition to the hatred produced in them by the punishments and deprivations of prison life, make most prisoners at least temporarily untamable and unteachable. Such inmates no longer think of themselves as guilty; instead, they often accuse the process of justice itself. In prison they learn to defy the law along with those institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system) established for enforcing our laws. The African-American author Eldridge Cleaver, writing from Folsom Prison in the 1960s, said that African-American convicts do not see themselves as criminals but as prisoners of war, the victims of a racist social system. They feel that they are being abused, and that their incarceration is another form of the oppression they have known all of their lives.28 Another way the criminal justice system indirectly produces criminals is by throwing the inmate’s family into destitution. The same system that sends the head of the family to prison each day lowers the remainder of the family into 26 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. xxxvii. 27 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1217. 28 Conover, New Jack, pp. 206–207.

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poverty, encourages the abandonment of children, and subjects the whole family to the vagaries of the welfare system. Incarceration in general serves no useful or constructive function for either the prisoner or for society. (There is one exception to the above statement, and in other places I shall discuss this exception. Prisons do protect society from those criminals who pose a clear and present danger to society, such as serial murderers and serial rapists.) Others have argued that prisons serve a useful function in keeping out of circulation those who commit nondangerous but still noxious and/or antisocial acts, such as burglars and those who violate our laws against the use and sale of illegal drugs. This argument does have some face validity, but it does not stand up well to close scrutiny. There are two arguments against it. First, incarceration may prevent offenders from acting out against society outside the prison, but it does not prevent inmates from committing antisocial acts within the prison. Prisons are dangerous places with high rates of rape, murder, suicide, and injuries from fights between prisoners. In many prisons, illegal drugs including narcotics are for sale on the black market. Secondly, although incarceration prevents inmates from committing antisocial acts against society while they are incarcerated, it tends to increase their acting-out of such impulses after their release from the prison. The net effect of incarceration and the punishments that go with incarceration is, in my opinion and those I quoted earlier in this chapter, negative and destructive. It is very probable that all US prisons cause more crime in prisoners than they prevent. America’s system of prisons is a massive and 215-year-old experiment that has failed — and has failed specifically in its aims of preventing crime, deterring criminals from committing more crimes, rehabilitating criminals, and protecting society. One major cause for this failure, although not the only one, has its origin in the overriding importance the criminal justice system has placed on the punishment of offenders. Jails and prisons in the US are malignant sources of more violence and crime. Penal institutions brutalize not only their inmates, but also, in a more subtle and indirect way, further brutalize our already violent society. Our American institutions for the punishment of children (corporal punishment) and adults (incarceration in prisons) are, in my opinion, major sources of human misery, psychiatric illness, and violence. In all contexts linked with the infliction of punishment (home, school, jail, prison, and the like), the prevailing and mistaken view is that punishment deters individuals from antisocial acts while also promoting the rehabilitation of the offender. The opposite is nearly always the case. Punishment of all individuals, 75


young or old, is a form of concealed violence and as such evokes feelings of shame, rage, and a need for revenge. These feelings are then acted out by the offender in a renewed cycle of violence, either against those who have punished the offender or their surrogates. This country should stop using punishment as a method of “correcting” its children and adults. In its place we need to use nonviolent methods of discipline, education, and to provide treatment for offenders of all ages. The chapters on Restorative Justice (Chapters 20, 21, and 22) provide information about new nonviolent and nonpunitive approaches for working with offenders.

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CHAPTER 6. THE SCAPEGOATING OF PRISONERS In the United States prisons are a system of domination used for the purpose of taking revenge on offenders for their crimes by punishing and scapegoating them. A scapegoat is someone or something used as an object for the negative projections of others. In such projections the subject attributes to others the disavowed parts of himself. As a part of its mission for domination and punishment of prisoners, the prison system scapegoats prisoners, and through this and other degrading actions inculcates shame in them; the prisoners’ shame is then most commonly covered over by their rage and defiant responses to the scapegoating. The prison psychiatrist Dr. J. Gilligan emphasizes the central role of shame in his theory of violence.1 By scapegoating and in other ways punishing and denigrating prisoners, we are giving them some of the same poison and shame that made them commit violent crimes in the first place.

SCAPEGOATING — A TYPE OF PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION Scapegoating is a species of projective identification, and because it is highly manipulative it is considered to fall into the category of Type B communication. For more on Type B communication, see Chapter 7. Some colloquial terms that are roughly equivalent to projective identification are dumping on someone and laying a trip on someone. My aim here is to elucidate the psychodynamics of scapegoating, first in what goes on in the mind of the perpetrator, and secondly in what happens be1 Gilligan, Violence, p. 236.

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tween the perpetrator and the victim. In scapegoating, the subject (perpetrator) first unconsciously disavows undesirable impulses or feelings within himself or herself and then projects (attributes) them onto someone else. In the second stage of this process, the subject treats the object in a manipulative manner; for example, he may speak to the other contemptuously. This contemptuous communication inculcates unbearable feelings of shame, often along with other related feelings such as self-hatred and feelings of rejection. Through any one or several of a wide variety of interpersonal manipulations and pressures on the object, the subject attempts to actualize his projections and expectations of the object. The object (victim) of scapegoating or other kinds of projective identification frequently responds by internalizing what has been projected onto him; he may then begin to believe in what has been attributed to him. A common example occurs in families in which one child is unconsciously singled out for scapegoating; he is then treated as if he were a “bad” boy. The child internalizes (believes) this and begins behaving as a “bad” boy, committing antisocial acts and the like. Another example can be recognized in racial conflicts between the blacks and whites in this country. Some blacks have internalized the hatred and contempt some whites have for them and have developed a negative “bad-guy” identity. This bad-guy identity may contribute to the development of a negative identity and toward a career as an habitual criminal. Scapegoating and other kinds of projective identification often include a self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation or prophecy that causes the expected or predicted event to be enacted and thus confirms its own accuracy. For example, when a young black prisoner is treated harshly and told he is a good-for-nothing “nigger” by a guard, he may internalize this shameful image of himself and begin to see himself and behave as if he were good for nothing. When people of any age are scapegoated (i.e., treated with hatred and contempt), they frequently — temporarily or permanently — internalize the hatred and contempt and view themselves as bad or inferior. The term scapegoating is derived from an ancient Jewish custom that took place during the mosaic ritual of the Day of Atonement. One of two goats that were chosen by lot was sent into the wilderness, the sins of the people having been symbolically laid upon it, while the other goat was sacrificed. The Oxford University Dictionary defines scapegoat as, “One who is blamed or punished for the sins of others.”2

2 “Scapegoat,” The Oxford University Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1955, p. 1800.

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Chapter 6. The Scapegoating of Prisoners

Non-criminals sometimes foster criminality in others in order to gratify vicariously their own criminal impulses. Non-criminals then often prosecute the criminal, who thereby becomes a scapegoat — a symbol of and an emotional container for the other person’s disavowed guilt over criminal impulses.3 Two mental-health professionals, Ruth Eissler and Adelaide Johnson, have presented case studies in which one or both parents have scapegoated their own children. In both investigations they found two stages in the process of scapegoating among these children. The first stage is one in which the adults turn their children into criminals by both tacitly encouraging antisocial behavior, and at the same time by failing to disapprove or to discipline such behavior. In the first stage, the parent or parents unconsciously and vicariously take pleasure in the child’s acting out of the parent’s forbidden desires. The second stage is one in which the parents denounce their children to the authorities. At this time they vicariously gratify their superego’s demand for punishment.4 As the attorney Martha Duncan has pointed out, references to criminals as “refuse,” “dirt,” “slime,” and “scum” pervade the media and everyday conversation both in England and the US. In the nineteenth century in England, many people used anal metaphors in discussing English criminals, and especially those sent to Australia. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham spoke out against the “thief-colony” in Australia in 1812, and he observed that England was projecting “a sort of excrementitious mass.”5 While words like refuse, garbage, pollution, and scum were commonly used to refer to convicts, the dominant metaphors used in England in the nineteenth century were stain and taint.6 These British non-criminals, in their policies about criminals sent to Australia, were using the defense mechanism of projective identification. That is to say, for them the convicts represented unacknowledged and denigrated aspects of themselves.7 Duncan asserts that the anal metaphor generally runs through criminal trials in the US as well as England. Her research turned up thirty-four American cases in which the characterization of the defendant as filth by the prosecutor was an issue on appeal. These cases show prosecutors calling defendants by such terms

3 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 112. 4 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 66. The two mental health professionals who have published case studies are the psychoanalyst Dr. Ruth Eissler and the psychiatrist Dr. Adelaide Johnson: Ruth Eissler, “Scapegoats of Society,” in Kurt Eissler, ed., Searchlights on Delinquency, pp.288– 305, New York: International Universities Press, 1949. Adelaide Johnson, “Sanctions for Superego Lacunae of Adolescents,” pp. 225–245. In Searchlights on Delinquency, pp. 227–228. 5 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 152. 6 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 153. 7 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 159.

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as “slimy creature,” “type of worm,” “skunk,” and “little scums.”8 For J. Edgar Hoover, former director of the FBI, the solution to crime was to be rid of (in one form or another) those criminals whom he called “vermin in human form,” “public rats,” and “scum from the boiling pot of the underworld.”9 At a more superficial and conscious level the criminal justice system ostensibly serves the purposes of protecting the public and punishing offenders by apprehending and incarcerating lawbreakers. At a deeper, more or less unconscious level this punitive domination system systematically scapegoats lawbreakers, and because the majority of felons are already disadvantaged before their conviction their low social status itself tends to elicit the scapegoating mechanism in some people. We pity the poor at the same time we “look down” upon them. The pity and sympathy more advantaged people feel for the poor and disadvantaged is often laced and intermixed with traces of denigration. For the most part, prisoners are poor, nonwhite, and tend to have little education. A majority suffer from some form of mental illness and/or drug and alcohol abuse problems. How does society scapegoat prisoners? Scapegoating is carried out by punishing, by depriving prisoners, and by isolating them from their families and communities. Through these and other actions, society systematically and repeatedly inculcates feelings of shame, hatred, and defiance in prisoners.10 Over a hundred years ago the major form of punishment was inflicting physical pain (e.g., whipping). Gradually the type of punishment administered has shifted from physical to mental pain, and in particular to the inculcation of shame through scapegoating and other means. The debased social status of felons as scapegoats and rejected outcasts is enacted through their brutalizing and punitive incarceration. Their degraded social status and consequent feelings of shame and rejection motivate many inmates to defy the society that has rejected them, often by becoming habitual criminals. Why does the US continue to support and enlarge the prison system despite its abysmally poor record of deterring criminal acts and reforming criminals? Society unconsciously fosters criminality and the punishing incarceration of offenders because these actions gratify the citizens’ need for revenge and for scapegoats.11

8 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 179. 9 Kevin Wright, The Great American Crime Myth. New York: Praeger, New York, 1987, p. 89. 10 Often prisoners, like other persons, consciously feel shame for only a brief time. This is because it is such a disturbing, sometimes overwhelming, emotion that humans quickly suppress their shame through feelings of anger, rage, and/or defiance. I suspect that few prisoners are consciously aware of the underlying shame for more than a few moments. Most often what they then feel is rage, anger, or hatred. Hatred and rage, then, are defenses against experiencing feelings of shame. 11 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 117; and Gilligan, Violence, p. 185–186.

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The upper class lulls the middle class into accepting its subordination to, and exploitation by, the upper class, by providing the middle class a class subordinate to itself (the lower class) to which the middle class can feel superior, thereby distracting the middle class from the hateful envy it often feels toward the upper class. It is in the interests of the upper class to keep the crime rate as high as possible.12 When crime is at its maximum, politicians represent themselves as saviors of the country by promising to “get tough on crime” and by waging their so-called war on crime. As Dr. Gilligan notes, the war on crime is actually a war on the poor, the social class that supplies the majority of prison inmates.13 Prisoners serve as scapegoats for large corporations and the very rich who manage them because the very rich and the corporations need to defensively conceal their many horrendous crimes against people and against the environment. For the most part they have succeeded in doing so for a long time. In 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush was looking for an issue to use for defeating the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency, Mike Dukakis, who was ahead in the polls. Bush triumphed over Dukakis in large part by exploiting the public’s fear of blacks and fear of crime. This was accomplished by the skillful use of newspaper and TV ads about the convicted black murderer, Willie Horton. Horton had been released for a short furlough from a prison in Massachusetts. While on furlough, he broke into the home of Angel and Cliff Barnes, tied Cliff up, beat him, and then proceeded to rape Angela. The Republican Party ran attack ads showing Willie Horton’s evil-looking and extremely black face “leering into the viewer’s living rooms, while a voice-over explained that Governor Dukakis had let this convicted murderer out of prison to rape a woman and brutalize another innocent family.”14 Bush’s strident appeal to racism and fear of crime was probably the most important element in his victory over Dukakis. In the last thirty years of the twentieth century, many of our state and national leaders, including George H. W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Pete Wilson, and others won power and maintained themselves in power by presenting themselves (as Adolf Hitler did in his rise to power in Germany) as tough law-and-order leaders who would apprehend and punish criminals. The fear and hatred of criminals (especially nonwhite criminals) energized the wide popular support for harsh new laws on criminals (e.g., the three strikes and you’re out laws), and especially for long sentences for drug offenses

12 Gilligan, Violence, pp. 185–186. 13 Gilligan, Violence, p. 187. 14 Sasha Abramsky, Hard Times Blues. New York: St. Martins, 2002, p. 46.

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in the 1970s and 1980s. During that period the average length of prison sentences for serious crimes more than tripled.15 Pete Wilson, an ex-Marine, won reelection as Governor of California in 1994 in part because he effectively portrayed himself as the toughest, meanest crimebuster around. Wilson and other politicians created and inflamed a wave of fear and hatred of criminals and “once the swell of wraith arose, they made sure that they were the ones who benefited.”16 Large corporations and the very rich deflect hatred and unfavorable attention from themselves onto criminals and racial minorities, and in order to accomplish this they use Pete Wilson and politicians like him to enhance their wealth and power. To win the powerful offices they desired, Pete Wilson, George H. W. Bush, and others of their ilk needed more than the donations of corporations and the very rich. In order to be elected to public office, Pete Wilson and many other politicians needed the votes of middle-class citizens, and those votes were obtained by inciting in them fear and hatred of criminals and of the poor. Pete Wilson’s attacks on those at the bottom of society were carried out in the service of concealing the crimes of the corporations and the very rich at the top. To keep his position as a favored son of the well-to-do, Pete Wilson supported various government actions and laws designed to benefit the upper class. The programs he advanced regarding taxes, immigration, welfare, and the criminal justice system all favored the rich. In his writings on the history of prisons, the French philosopher Michel Foucault has emphasized how the rich upper classes have benefited from the scapegoating of criminals, the poor, and the underprivileged. He wrote:

Once capitalism had physically entrusted wealth, in the form of raw materials and means of production, to popular hands, it became absolutely essential to protect this wealth. . . . How was this mostly to be protected? . . . It was absolutely necessary to constitute the populace as a moral subject and to break its commerce with criminality, and hence segregate the delinquents and to show them to be dangerous not only for the rich but for the poor as well, vice-ridden instigators of the gravest social perils.17

A study by Katherine Beckett shows that typically politicians lead public opinion about criminals rather than follow it. Politicians raise public fears and anxieties and then propose harsh, simplistic remedies (such as the three strikes law) to ameliorate them.18 The severe new laws (three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and the like) are by-products of an effective political strategy widely 15 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 67. 16 Abramsky, Hard Times Blues, p. xv. 17 Foucault, Power/Knowledge, p. 41. 18 Katherine Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

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used in the US between about 1970 and 2000 for winning elections.19 However, politicians such as Pete Wilson in California and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani were mistaken in their recommendations about the deterrent merits of the mean-spirited and “tough” new laws on criminals. According to the noted criminologist Michael Tonry, there is no credible evidence that harsh punishments such as three-strikes laws, mandatory sentences, or sexual psychopath laws are significant deterrents to crime.20 In sum, America maintains its prisons, an abusive and harmful system of domination, for the purposes of punishing and scapegoating its poor, uneducated, and nonwhite citizens, as well as to enhance the power and wealth of the very rich.

19 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 40–41. For more about three-strikes laws, see Joe Domanick, Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. 20 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 40.

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CHAPTER 7. THE PROCESS RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

OF

CRIMINALIZATION

OF

PRISONERS — A

Chapter 5 concluded that incarceration tends to foster criminal behavior. This chapter addresses the question, How does prison life bring about more criminal behavior in the prisoners? In responding to this question, I use what psychoanalysts call a relational perspective in examining what there is about a prisoner’s relationships with other prisoners and with the prison guards that promotes rather than inhibits criminality. The criminal justice system punishes, deprives, and degrades prisoners in many ways. One important way that punishment and dehumanization are enacted in the everyday life of prisoners lies in how guards relate to and communicate with prisoners. This chapter discusses the powerful and covertly destructive process by which guards relate to prisoners. My formulation about this is original and it is informed by psychoanalytic concepts about modes of human communication and relatedness. Probably the most informative book about what goes on in prisons from a guard’s perspective is one written by a journalist, Ted Conover, who spent a year working as a guard in Sing Sing Prison.1 He eloquently testifies to the dehumanization of both prisoners and guards that most commonly takes place in prisons. Two common modes of communication exist between guards and prisoners. The first is the hostile, sadomasochistic Type B mode, and the second is an impersonal, affectless Type C mode of relatedness and communication. The Type B 1 Conover, New Jack.

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mode is above all manipulative, inasmuch as the speaker, both by the words he uses and his nonverbal (emotional) communication, attempts to provoke the victim into feeling angry, anxious, ashamed, guilty, and the like. The Type C mode is impersonal, lacking in emotion and devoid of gestures or other body movements. Because both of these modes of communication are at the same time modes of relating, I shall, for the purposes of this book, use the terms communicating and relating as synonyms. The use of the sadomasochistic Type B mode by guards and its harmful effects on prisoners was emphasized by the psychiatrist Dr. William Conte in his book on prison reform.2 For more about Dr. Conte and his account of the ways guards relate to prisoners, see Chapter 8. The sadomasochistic mode involves hostile, contemptuous, and sadistic communications from guards to prisoners. Prisoners in turn either respond in kind to these hateful and contemptuous communications or, more often, they conceal their anger behind a facade of submissiveness and/or compliance. The initiator of a sadomasochistic interaction may be either a guard or an inmate, though most commonly it is the guard who speaks sadistically to the inmate. Sadism and masochism are like two sides of the same coin and often they coexist in the same person. Frequently, one is used to conceal the other; the sadist conceals his masochism and projects it onto others. Or conversely, the masochist conceals his sadistic side and projects his sadism on to another person. Though most people think of the sadist as the one who dominates and controls the masochist, we should remember that the masochist, in more subtle and covert ways, also exerts a measure of control over the sadist. Being powerful and in control of the other has primary and overriding importance for both sadists and masochists. The former prison guard, Ted Conover, and the Catholic nun, Helen Prejean, each emphasize how frequently guards and prisoners relate to each other in a distant way, or in what I call the Type C mode of communication. Guards are taught to speak to prisoners in an impersonal, detached, and unemotional manner. The relationship between guards and inmates is typically one of mutual distrust and emotional distance.3 Guards expect that inmates will attempt to con them. Inmates fear the guards will put them in isolation or in other ways use their superior powers to punish them.4 Because of this mutual mistrust, guards don’t reveal their identity or first names to prisoners. Conover writes, “A CO 2 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, pp. 33–35. 3 Conover, New Jack, p. 30; and Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. New York: Vintage, 1994, p. 71. 4 Prejean, Dead Man Walking, p. 71.

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Chapter 7. The Process of Criminalization of Prisoners — A Relational Perspective

[correction officer] pisses off an influential inmate in his block. Three days later, the prisoner hands him a manila envelope. Inside are pictures of the CO’s daughter at play on her swing set.”5 The first rule of guards is never to relate on a personal level with inmates. Guards are discouraged by their superiors from sharing their personal lives with inmates.6 In their interactions with prisoners, guards often adopt a cold, stony-faced demeanor. Conover writes, “All the guards we passed in the halls had adopted blank, tough expressions that betrayed no weakness or curiosity, no disgust or delight. I wondered: was this only about closing the blinds on your own soul so they couldn’t see in?”7 Conover describes the detached, professional distance correctional officers kept between themselves and inmates. “The main feeling was that inmates were like a contagion — and the more you kept a professional distance, the better you’d be. It wasn’t good to know inmates’ crimes, because then you might treat them unequally. It wasn’t good to know their personal lives, because they might try to drag you into them, which would compromise security.”8 According to Conover, prison is a “microcosm of a totalitarianism society, a nearly pure example of the police state. The military provide the model for the chain of command; enlisted men and women were marshaled daily by their superior officers into a battle of wills with the mass of angry and resentful prisoners. We who were in uniform controlled nearly every aspect of their lives. And prison, more than any place I’d ever been, was about rules.”9 Because guards are indoctrinated into viewing themselves as and behaving like members of a military organization, the question arises: Who’s the enemy? If you guess the answer to be the prisoners, you are right. When either the impersonal Type C mode or the sadomasochistic Type B mode (or both modes) become the predominant day-after-day ways of relating, the effect on prisoners is most often stultifying and psychologically hurtful. In such contexts, neither the Type C mode nor the Type B mode is at all caring or even humane. Affectless, impersonal communication has been called the Type C mode of communication by the American psychoanalyst Dr. Robert Langs, and the computer mode of communication by Dr. Suzette Elgin, a professor of linguistics.10 5 Conover, New Jack, p. 85. 6 Prejean, Dead Man Walking, p. 180. 7 Conover, New Jack, p. 30. 8 Conover, New Jack, p. 221. 9 Conover, New Jack, p. 96. 10 Robert Langs, “Some Communicative Properties of the Bipersonal Field.” In Technique in Transition. New York: Jason Aronson, 1978; and Suzette Haden Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal

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A persistent use of the Type C mode of communication tends initially to evoke in listeners feelings of shame and/or rejection. Anger and/or indifference (emotional numbness) are frequently among later responses. Professor Elgin makes the prudent suggestion that employing the computer mode (Type C mode) can be a protective device against abusive or threatening communications from other persons. For women who are seeking protection from abusive or predatory males, for example, Elgin recommends they use the computer mode both for turning away from and turning off the threatening male. In infants and children, as well as adults, emotions are the central medium through which vital information, especially information about a person’s ongoing interpersonal relations, is both transmitted and received. The suppression of emotions in the Type C mode is therefore a way of blocking what is arguably the most important way humans relate to each other. In my clinical research, I have found that the Type C mode consists of massive barriers to meaningful and humane interpersonal relatedness.11 The context determines whether usage of the Type C mode is normal or pathological, constructive or destructive, to human relations. Some commonplace examples of the use of the Type C mode that are not necessarily pathological can be seen in hierarchically organized institutions such military organizations, when officers use the Type C mode to give orders or make official pronouncements. The officer will generally deliver these messages in an affectless, impersonal manner except, of course, that variations in the intensity and loudness of presentation may be subtle indicators of the importance of the message and/or the authority of the speaker. There is also a learned and prescribed Type C mode in which the enlisted man responds to the officer’s orders; it is a response that suppresses emotions and avoids direct eye contact. Often the verbal utterance of the enlisted men is restricted to an impersonal utterance such as “Aye aye, Sir” (Navy) or “Yes, Sir” (Army). I emphasize that the above examples and other context-specific variants of the Type C mode are prescribed for specific situations and not ordinarily called forth at other times. The Type C mode is one in which the subject distances himself from intimate and personal interactions with others. The Type C mode “speaks” to us of deadness, impersonality, dehumanization, emptiness, indifference, and/or a hateful desire to obliterate any emotional connection with the other person. The im-

Self-Defense. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980. 11 Theo. L. Dorpat, “The Type C Mode of Communication – An Interactive Perspective.” International Journal of Communicative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy 8:47–54, 1993.

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plicit message often conveyed by the Type C mode is something like “Go away! I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” Psychoanalysts who listen to patients who speak predominantly in the Type C mode commonly diagnose them as suffering from a chronic and fairly serious psychiatric disorder. This is not necessarily the case, however, with prison guards. Rather, guards communicate in the Type C mode because in American jails and prisons they are taught to relate and speak to prisoners in this way, and because there are strong social pressures in penal institutions for guards to relate to prisoners in this impersonal manner. Aside from incarceration itself, the guards’ Type C mode of relating to the prisoners is one of the most punitive and harmful aspects of the prison experience. My opinion of the harmfulness of the ways guards communicate with inmates, and specifically their distant Type C communication, differs somewhat from the opinion of my friend William Conte, who emphasized the destructiveness of the guards who often spoke to prisoners in an openly sadomasochistic Type B mode. But times have changed the way people communicate. When Dr. Conte made his observations of guards in the 1950s and ’60s, more American men spoke in harsh, macho ways than they do now. Today it’s considered “cool” to speak in a cold, impersonal manner (no pun intended). For example, when Clint Eastwood plays the part of a tough guy in movies, he usually speaks in the Type C mode. Though jail and prison guards sometimes relate in a hostile, contemptuous Type B mode to prisoners, I believe that they more commonly today communicate in the affectless Type C mode. Since corporal punishment in prisons was declared illegal in most states more than a hundred years ago, the chief forms of punishment in penal institutions are the many deprivations of prison life. By their impersonal and affectless mode of relating, guards are depriving the prisoners (as well as themselves) of a meaningful and constructive relationship. As one who has studied conscious and unconscious communication, I understand the significance and the interpersonal effects of the ways guards communicate with prisoners. The Type C mode of communication, as used in prisons, is designed to attenuate and/or extinguish warm or humane relations between guards and prisoners. Research on mothers and their infants shows that when adults repeatedly relate to infants in this cold, impersonal way, the baby’s personality development is blocked. Young children who survive this severe deprivation usually develop some kind of psychiatric disorder, and some infants who are deprived of caring interactions with caretakers for a prolonged time do not survive. Until about twenty-five years ago, many American psychoanalysts idealized a neutral and detached stance in their interactions with their patients, to whom 89


they spoke in an affectless (Type C mode) manner. I recall one training analyst whose definition of psychoanalytic neutrality was to speak to his patients in a tone of voice in which all emotion was suppressed (the Type C mode). Times have changed, and today, I believe, most psychoanalysts would agree that the frequent and/or sustained use of the Type C mode by clinicians, whether in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, has a stultifying and dehumanizing effect on the therapeutic process. In my supervisory work I have found that clinicians who sometimes speak in an affectless (Type C) mode do so in an unconscious response to their patient’s Type C communications. When people are communicating with another person or persons, there is a strong and pervasive tendency to adopt the same mode of communication as the other(s) in the group. For example, if a patient communicates in a Type B mode to a clinician it will be difficult for that clinician to not respond in the same Type B mode. When either member of the therapeutic dyad speaks in a Type B mode (projective identification), there is a tendency for the other member to respond with another projective identification. Putting this in colloquial language, one could say that if one person dumps or lays a trip on another individual, the recipient of the dumping experiences a pressure to respond to the one who is dumping in the same Type B mode. The same generalization holds true in dyads or groups where one person communicates in a normal (Type A) mode or in an inauthentic, insincere mode (Type D). In such contexts the others will often respond in the same mode. Although I find the inauthentic (or insincere) mode (Type D) most repugnant and alien to my nature, I found myself to my dismay speaking in a somewhat phony, inauthentic way at a recent holiday cocktail party where I did not know many people. For example, I praised the hostess for a painting she had on view when I really did not think it was as grand as I said it was. I silently despised myself for being so insincere. I felt better after I discovered that almost everyone at this party was talking in a similar inauthentic manner. Because this group, made up mainly of strangers, was too mistrustful of its members to communicate in a spontaneous and normal manner (Type A mode), and its members were so fearful of being rejected if they spoke in a projective identification (Type B) or affectless (Type C) mode, nearly all of them spoke in a somewhat falsely convivial inauthentic manner (Type D mode). These same generalizations about the interpersonal aspects of modes of communication hold true for the interactions between guards and prisoners. Because the guards communicate to prisoners mainly in the affectless (Type C) mode, most often the prisoners respond to the guards using the same Type C mode. However, when either a guard or a prisoner speaks to the other with some hos90


tile projective identification (the Type B mode), the other will most probably respond in the same mode. Unfortunately, in prisons and jails one will seldom hear any normal (Type A) communication. Prison guards see their main duty as literally guarding their prisoners almost all the time. This means they are silently watching the inmates for any evidence of wrongdoing or attempts to escape. Today, surveillance cameras provide an efficient tool for observing and controlling the activities of prisoners. Some jails have such cameras in all of the cells, and this has led to a disturbing loss of privacy for many inmates.

PRISON RELATIONSHIPS FOSTER THE FORMATION AND/OR NEGATIVE GROUP IDENTITY

OF A

NEGATIVE IDENTITY

The nature of the relationships between the prisoners and between prisoners and guards often fosters in the prisoner the formation of a negative identity as a criminal, and often a negative group identity as well. For some prisoners, especially the younger nonwhite inmates who may have already developed a negative identity before their incarceration, the stresses of the prison experience and their interactions with guards and other prisoners will most probably augment a preexisting negative identity. The American psychoanalyst Eric Erikson defined a negative identity as “an identity previously based on all those identifications and roles which, at critical stages of development, had been presented to the individual as most undesirable or dangerous, and yet also as most real.”12 The prisoners’ hatred of a common enemy — the prison system and the guards who work in the system — provides the emotional cement that binds the prisoners together in a common brotherhood organized to resist the prison system. The traumatic psychological effects of incarceration, acting together with the teaching and example of the older convicts, train the young offender to be an habitual offender. One of the first desires created within him will be to learn from the more-experienced seniors lessons about how to escape the rigors of the law. The young offender will also learn to regard not only the prison system but all of society as his enemy. His increasingly stronger attachment to other criminals will gradually replace his earlier attachments to friends, relatives, and to the society that rejected and punished him by sending him off to prison. The reader may wonder, Why does the prisoner form these attachments and identifications with other prisoners? The answer is simple: inmates, like other 12 Eric Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle: Psychological Issues Vol. 1, No. 1. New York: International Universities Press, 1959, p. 131.

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humans, need relationships with other people and need to belong to a community. Moreover, the other prisoners are the only individuals available for constructing these essential bonds to other people. According to Mark Mason, a former prison inmate, prisons do not rehabilitate inmates because the criminal justice system does everything in its power to impose on the inmates a negative criminal identity. The theologian Walter Wink summarizes Mason’s opinions in the following:

The prisoner is taught, by the guards, administration and other inmates, how a criminal walks, talks, breathes, looks, reacts. Prison strips a person of a sense of self and conditions one to act like a criminal in order to fit into the group. Consequently, as high as eighty percent of released convicts return to prison. Having developed a “criminal self,” having identified with the criminal life and criminal population, most find that they cannot live a life apart. The criminal justice system not only is a school for crime; it actually molds people’s souls into the very identity prisons are supposed to make them renounce. Having become alienated from their true selves, they can live nowhere else than in this hellish circle of the damned who have nothing left but a collective negative identity.13

Many Hispanic and black people may have already formed a negative identity and/or negative group identity prior to their incarceration, and this is especially likely if they have been living in an urban ghetto. In such persons, the prison experience tends to intensify and augment a preexisting negative identity and/or negative group identity. According to Eric Erikson, a negative group identity “prevails in some of the youth especially in our large cities, where conditions of economic, ethnic, and religious marginality provide a poor basis for positive identities.”14 The subsequent intergenerational transmission of a negative identity and perhaps other related qualities and attitudes from the generation in which one parent has been incarcerated to other future generations is alarming. The Reverend Wilson Goode, a former mayor of Philadelphia, states that 2.5 million children currently have an incarcerated parent. According to a US Senate report Goode quoted, these children are six times more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors such as using or selling drugs or dropping out of school than are other children. The Senate report projected that seven out of ten of these children would end up in prison themselves without some kind of preventative intervention.15 In his autobiography a former prisoner, John McVicar, claimed that the prison system could not hope to be reformative because in effect it served to romanticize the older, hardened con. “Young prisoners were more likely to identify 13 Wink, Engaging the Powers, p. 202. Italics are mine. 14 Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle, p. 162. As an example of negative group identity, Erickson describes criminal gangs in America’s large cities. 15 Julie C. Keller, “Researchers Offer Merits of Spirituality, Health in Practice.” Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology, vol. 3, 2003, p. 11.

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with the tough long-termers than with the prison wardens; so the spurious image of the glamorous macho life of the hardened criminal was perpetuated rather than dissipated.”16

PSYCHOSOCIAL PROCESSES OF PRISONIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION The sociologist Donald Clemmer studied the effects of incarceration and concluded that both the punishments and deprivations of prison life contribute to the psychosocial process of prisonization.17 Prisonization is a socialization process in which inmates internalize the norms, values, customs, and the code of the inmate culture. Because of the serious brutalizing and other damaging effects of prisonization, Donald Clemmer equated prisonization with criminalization. The processes of prisonization and criminalization also impede reform and rehabilitation because they bring about the rejection of conventional values and norms.18 The impersonal and often adversarial relationship between guards and prisoners makes an important contribution to the criminalization process. This process of prisonization and criminalization begins when inmates are admitted to the prison and are forced to accept the role of inferiors in the prison social hierarchy. They receive a number to replace their name, and institutional uniforms to replace their street clothes. Through their forced adoption of prison rules and regulations, inmates surrender much of their personal autonomy. These and other changes pose a serious threat to their personal identity. Prisons make possible and even encourage an informal organization of inmates in which inmates have their own rules and code of conduct. Prisoners achieve a more cohesive sense of self and stable identity through their identification with other prisoners and by following the inmate code, an informal list of rules that is clearly different from and even opposed to the conventional values and goals of the prison staff. Inmate codes define normative boundaries for the inmate who is punished by other prisoners in various ways, which range from ostracism to violence (even execution) if he violates the prisoners’ code. The inmate code and the related inmate set of values are firmly based on an exaggerated ideal of masculinity that promotes macho behavior and condemns weakness. Some major categories of the inmate code include, “Don’t Interfere with Inmate Interests . . . Don’t Lose your Head . . . Don’t Exploit Inmates . . . Don’t 16 Denise Winn, The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning, and Indoctrination. London: Octagon Press, 1983, p. 199. 17 Donald Clemmer’s The Prison Community (New York: Rinehart, 1958) is cited in Michael Welsch, “Prisonization,” pp. 357–362. In McShane and Williams, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 359. 18 Welsch, “Prisonization,” p. 359.

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Weaken . . . Don’t Be a Sucker.”19 The inmate code strongly condemns the “rat” or “squealer,” the convict who provides inside information about other inmates to prison staff. The squealer is often subjected to brutal revenge attacks, including execution by other inmates. The inmate code prohibits loyalty to conventional values and prescribes a fierce loyalty to the inmate group and its code. The processes of prisonization and criminalization are no doubt influenced strongly by the harshness and many deprivations of prison life, largely because they serve to alleviate feelings of deprivation and provide for social relationships with other inmates. Although the processes of prisonization and criminalization are mainly constructed in response to the toxic prison social environment, they also have some of their roots in the lives of some prisoners prior to their incarceration. Many inmates import into the prison community the values, attitudes, and behaviors from their outside life as street criminals and gang members. Although the processes of prisonization and criminalization may generate some positive effects such as social contacts and inmate solidarity, they also produce powerful negative effects through the reinforcement of the antisocial attitudes and values of many prisoners. The punishments and deprivations of prison contribute to the formation of “an inmate culture that is in opposition to the custodial staff.”20 These deprivations include the deprivation of goods and services, the deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and the deprivation of autonomy. All of the above and other deprivations of prison life create frustration, stress, and hatred in the prisoners and opposition to the guards and to the prison.21 Prisoners in American prisons are not only brutalized, they are also infantilized by the system. Almost everything they do is observed, regulated, and supervised by guards. Their capacities for self-regulation and autonomous functioning are severely compromised and they are generally treated like naughty two-year-old children who need to be constantly watched and controlled by their keepers.22 The four interrelated psychosocial processes (prisonization, criminalization, the formation of a negative identity, and/or negative group identity) bring about severe destructive effects on prisoners, including a defiant attitude toward the law, increased criminal acts, and a blocking of the deterrent effects of punishment on criminality. Dr. Sherman found four conditions were needed for the formation of a defiant response to punishment, and they are: The offenders experience the punishment as unfair or illegitimate, offenders have weak bonds to their 19 Welsch, “Prisonization,” p. 358. 20 Mary Pelz, “Gangs,” pp. 213–218. In McShane and Williams, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 218. 21 Welsch, “Prisonization,” p. 360. 22 Conover, New Jack, p. 234.

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community, offenders deny their shame and feel pride in their isolation from the punishing community.23 All four of these conditions for the defiance response, in my opinion, occur in the majority of prisoners. For more on the conditions needed for either deterrence or the defiant attitude, see Chapter 11.

SHAME INCULCATION IN PRISONERS — THE TOTAL DEGRADATION CEREMONY One of the many ways prisons inculcate shame and brutalize their inmates is by what the prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan describes as a “total degradation ceremony.” Degradation ceremonies provide the conditions for inducing shame. The moral indignity of the ceremony and the inculcation of shame serve to effect the ritual destruction of the person, and this destruction is intended literally. Here, the transformation of identities takes place through the destruction of one social object and the constitution of another at a lower status.24 The central feature of one degradation ceremony consists of stripping the new inmate naked in front of a group of officers. The officers then force him to bend over in the attitude of submission and, in addition, to spread the cheeks of his buttocks so that his anal orifice is completely exposed to the group. At that point one of the officers sticks a gloved finger into the man’s anus — ostensibly to determine whether the new inmate is smuggling drugs into prison by hiding them in his rectum. According to Gilligan, this admission degradation ritual is deliberately intended to terrify and humiliate the new inmate by showing him the total power the prison has over him, and to intimidate him into submitting completely to the officers of the prison. This degradation ceremony is not done in all prisons. Gilligan explains that some superintendents correctly understand the degrading aspect of this ceremony and refuse to allow such humiliating behavior in their institutions. The symbolism of this degrading ceremony is obvious — it is a humiliating digital anal rape. And in Gilligan’s words, the degradation ceremony is a “massive assault on and annihilation of manhood.”25 The degradation ceremony (digital anal rape) together with other common prison rape experiences — in conjunction with other stresses and humiliations of the incarceration experience — can bring about the intended aim of such ceremonies: “Ritual destruction of the personality or manhood of the inmate, the death of his self, so that he becomes a ‘non-person,’ or a ‘dead soul.’ ”26 What 23 Laurence W. Sherman. “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal Sanction.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30:445–473, 1993, p. 448. 24 Harold Garfinkle, “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies.” The American Journal of Sociology 61:420–424, 1956, p. 424. 25 Gilligan, Violence, p. 154. 26 Gilligan, Violence, p. 154.

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Gilligan describes as the product of degradation ceremonies and other stresses of the prison experience is similar to what a number of psychoanalysts have called soul murder.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS This chapter is a response to the question, How does the prison environment foster criminality? My answers are informed by a relational perspective in which I focus on the relationships between prisoners and between prisoners and guards. The major ways guards communicate and relate to prisoners (the impersonal Type C mode and the sadomasochistic Type B mode) both deprive prisoners of more constructive, humane modes of relating, and/or they are harshly punitive. The stressful, toxic prison environment contributes to the formation of four interrelated psychosocial processes, including prisonization, criminalization, and the formation of a negative identity and/or a negative group identity. These processes in turn lead to the defiant response to law and authority and toward increased criminality.

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CHAPTER 8. THE LIMITATIONS OF PRISON REFORM This chapter examines the reforms of six leaders — Conte, Farnham, Gill, Maconochie, Murton, and Osborne — who led prison-reform movements. All six succeeded brilliantly for a short time and then they and their reforms were rejected. After those rejections, the prisons where they had worked resumed their traditional punitive approach. A final section argues that these reform movements failed in part because of an inherent incompatibility between the traditional punishment approaches and treatment approaches based on nonviolent and scientific principles.

PRISON REFORMS ON NORFOLK ISLAND BY CAPTAIN MACONOCHIE, 1840 About nine hundred miles northeast of Sydney, Australia, lies Norfolk Island, where Britain established a penal colony for some of the nation’s worst convicts. In 1827, Australian Governor Darling stated his intention to make this settlement, “a place of the extremest punishment, short of death.”1 In 1840, Alexander Maconochie, a retired Navy captain, was appointed superintendent of the Island.

Maconochie viewed imprisonment as a sufficient punishment in itself; he saw no need for additional tortures and degradations. True to this philosophy, during his four years as superintendent he presided over many humanitarian reforms: building churches, re-establishing schools, demolishing gallows, and permitting the convicts to cultivate gardens. . . . Maconochie’s reforms proved remarkably successful in the rehabilitation of the supposedly unsalvageable offenders of Norfolk Island. Only three percent

1 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 162.

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Crimes of Punishment of the 1,450 prisoners discharged during Maconochie’s tenure are known to have been reconvicted.2

One of the most remarkable instances of rehabilitation was inmate Charles Anderson, who suffered from the effects of irreversible brain damage. Anderson had been a violent and angry person when he was convicted of burglary and placed on Goat Island, a rock in the harbor of Sydney. For two years he had been fastened by chain to the rock, his only shelter a cavity carved out of the stone. Festering unhealed welts on his back were the residue of hundreds of punishments with the lash. Sydney residents amused themselves by rowing out to his rock and throwing pieces of bread or offal for him to eat. Anderson was removed from Goat Island to a prison at Port Macquarie, where he murdered an overseer in hopes of attaining escape through being hanged. (For more on the dynamic in which murderers seek the death penalty, see my discussion of this topic in Chapter 9 and James Gilligan’s book on violence.3) Anderson’s death sentence was commuted and he was sent to Norfolk Island, where he continued to be violent and uncooperative until Maconochie became superintendent of the island. The compassionate Maconochie gave Anderson a job taming bullocks, which kept him away from the ridicule of other prisoners. Because Anderson succeeded in his first assignment, Maconochie put him to work managing a signal station. Inmate Anderson stopped being violent and improved enormously under the kindly and respectful care of Maconochie. On an inspection tour of Norfolk Island in 1843, Governor Gipps wrote of his astonishment at seeing Anderson transformed from a wild beast to a trimly dressed man who appeared to be an effective worker. The compassion and respect Maconochie had for the troubled inmate were the essential and critical inputs in the process of his successful rehabilitation.4 Maconochie’s reforms and his effectiveness in rehabilitating convicts evoked ridicule and opposition in both Australia and England. The authorities in London recalled Maconochie in 1844. Why did both the Australian and English non-criminals react so negatively to this most humane leader whose reforms succeeded in transforming hardened criminals? Several explanations are noted by attorney Martha Duncan. The noncriminals who became aware of his reforms and their beneficial effects may have feared that turning Norfolk Island into a more humane place may have diluted the Island’s deterrent value.5 2 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 163. 3 Gilligan, Violence, pp. 41–42. 4 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, pp. 163–164. 5 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 164. Ms. Duncan is one of the very few attorneys in the US who has had psychoanalytic training. Her scholarly book combines her legal expertise with

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Chapter 8. The Limitations of Prison Reform

Also, by treating the prisoners with kindness and empathy, Maconochie may have frustrated the non-criminals’ need to exact punitive vengeance on the convicts. Much to Duncan’s credit, she does address a deeper, more subtle unconscious motive when she asserts that

. . . the negative reactions to Maconochie’s reforms primarily stem from the non-criminals’ need to use this Australian prison as a symbol of hell. . . . places of punishment are typically imagined as mimicking the qualities of the punished. Since criminals are seen as intimately related to filth, their prison must be filthy as well . . . it must be dark and stinking with garbage. . . . By undermining . . . Norfolk Island’s ability to function as a symbol of hell, Maconochie challenged the non-criminals’ dualistic vision of the world and, with it, their dialectically determined identity as the pure noncriminals, the untainted remnant.6

Probably some non-criminals need places like Norfolk not only as symbols of hell, but also as places of punishment and pain that are actually hellish. Though the Union Army General William T. Sherman spoke truthfully when he said, “War is Hell!” I believe war must take a second place to prisons. In my experience, no other human institution is more like hell than US prisons. What Duncan opines as the most important reasons for the hostile response to Maconochie’s extraordinary ability to rehabilitate so many convicts is also true of the responses of non-criminals to the work of many other individuals who have attempted to reform the prison systems both in the US and in some European countries. Norfolk Island and its prisoners provided a psychic unconscious defensive function for the non-criminals inasmuch as the exiled convicts served as psychic containers and symbols for certain undesirable aspects of the non-criminals, including especially their greed, sadism, and hostility to authority. Many, probably most, non-criminals in America as well as in other countries of the Western world project onto convicts disavowed antisocial and destructive aspects of themselves. They then fear and hate criminals not only because of their actual crimes, but also because criminals unconsciously represent the destructive aspects of themselves they have disavowed. In the 1970s and ’80s, politicians in the US increasingly used criminals as scapegoats for qualities many Americans disavow within themselves. This powerful but hidden unconscious dynamic explains a number of disturbing aspects about prisons, including (1) the powerful resistance against prison reform on the part of many people, both in the prison system and elsewhere, and (2) the reason why the public is so vulnerable and easily moved by politicians who take a tough-on-crime stance. The present mass incarceration psychoanalytic insights into both prisons and prisoners. 6 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 164–165.

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and overcrowding of many prisons stems in part because legislators have in the last thirty-five years passed so much legislation lowering the bar to admission. The “three strikes and you’re out” laws and laws mandating longer sentences have brought about mass incarceration and overcrowding. By treating criminals as scapegoats, politicians have capitalized on this dynamic to win the favor of the masses and to win elections for themselves! The story of Maconochie and his reforms at Norfolk is a natural experiment that provides compelling evidence for the hypothesis that prisoners can be rehabilitated when punishments are removed and the prisoners are treated with compassion and respect.

PRISON REFORMS OF ELIZABETH FARNHAM IN NEW YORK STATE, 1844 Prison reform for women has been met with as much rejection as has reform for prisons for men. In 1844, Elizabeth Farnham was hired to manage Mt. Pleasant, a separate building for “female” offenders in a prison at Ossining, New York. She brought in such refinements as a piano, and instituted classes as well as Bible readings. Her liberal views on reform led to her removal after only two years.7

PRISON REFORMS OF HOWARD BILDING GILL IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1933 Howard Bilding Gill was a reform-minded criminologist who believed that offenders could be rehabilitated in an environment that mirrored the outside world as much as possible. Gill was superintendent of the Massachusetts Correctional facility at Norfolk. Gill was forced to resign in 1934 after several escapes led to allegations and public outcries about him for “coddling” criminals.8 Although the progressive ideas about reform, rehabilitation, and treatment that guided Gill and like-minded persons had a powerful impact on American correctional facilities in the 1950s and ’60s, support for these reforms diminished in the 1970s and afterward. The loss of support for rehabilitation and treatment, as well as other progressive approaches, is directly traceable to the increased concerns over crime in the streets and a hardening, more punitive attitude toward criminals among the general population that occurred after 1970.

7 Joycelyn M. Pollock, “Women Inmates,” pp. 501–503. In McShane and Williams, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 501. 8 Les Carroll, “Howard Bilding Gill (1890–1989),” pp. 218–220. In McShane and Williams, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons.

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PRISON REFORMS OF THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE IN NEW YORK STATE, 1913 A millionaire industrialist and politician, Thomas Osborne disguised himself as a prisoner in 1913 to learn firsthand about conditions at Auburn Prison in upstate New York, where he served as the warden. Later he used his “inmate” experience and the resultant publicity about it to launch a campaign for fundamental prison reform. Osborne had a deep respect for the autonomy of the inmates, and he knew that the prison system did little or nothing to prepare inmates for independent lives on the outside. His aim was to teach inmates democracy and responsible social interaction. Osborne believed prisoners needed to do more for themselves, and for these reasons he established a form of self-government for the inmates that he called the Mutual Welfare League.9 Osborne successfully transformed a brutal maximum-security prison into an uplifting education-oriented institution. Production in the prison shops at Auburn Prison increased and disciplinary problems were nearly eliminated. As a result of the League’s success, he was appointed warden at Sing Sing Prison in 1914. Soon after he arrived at Sing Sing, Osborne implemented the Mutual Welfare League just as he had done at Auburn. Various politicians and his official superior were determined to discredit his reform efforts. He was indicted by a Westchester County Grand Jury for perjury and neglect of duty. He asked for and received a leave of absence so that he could defend himself against the charges. On July 16, 1919, he returned to Sing Sing fully vindicated. He was reinstated as warden but resigned three months later because certain politicians and the superintendent of prisons were determined to defeat his reform efforts. Osborne criticized the prison system for brutalizing both the prisoners and the guards. “Prisoners are treated now like wild animals and are kept in cages,” he said in a lecture in 1905. “The system brutalizes the men and the keepers. [The inmates] are forced to work and this is not reformatory. It does not create in the criminal a desire to work and respect the law.”10 The Mutual Welfare League, developed out of Osborne’s efforts to establish self-government for the inmates, was an administration-supervised measure for prisoners to govern their own lives, from administering a system of discipline to organizing sports and a commissary where prisoners could buy goods. “To the consternation of his many political enemies, and certainly Auburn’s guards, Osborne used his charisma and the credibility earned as an ‘inmate’ to put this system into effect.”11 9 Conover, New Jack, p. 193. 10 Conover, New Jack, p. 196. 11 Conover, New Jack, p. 198.

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In 1917 Osborne was appointed head of the Portsmouth Naval Prison and remained there until 1920, when he retired. Though Osborne’s innovative reforms were in the main often partially successful in attaining the goal of rehabilitating prisoners, they were never fully accepted. The Mutual Welfare League he instituted first in Auburn, then in Sing Sing, and finally at the Portsmouth Naval Prison was ultimately abolished. Though Osborne was popular among the inmates he, like the other reformers, was hated by the guards, who mocked him and considered him naive.12

PRISON REFORMS OF THOMAS MURTON IN ARKANSAS, 1967 In Arkansas prior to the time Thomas Murton became Warden, whipping was the main disciplinary measure and an inmate could be whipped with a fivefoot leather strap ten times a day. Other methods of corporal punishment included inserting needles under the fingernails, crushing knuckles and testicles with pliers, hitting the inmate with a blackjack, or kicking him in the groin, mouth, or testicles. The most brutal and painful punishment was the use of the “Tucker Telephone.” In this punishment, the offender was stripped naked and strapped to a table. Electrodes were attached to the prisoner’s big toe and his penis and electrical charges were sent through his body until just before the prisoner became unconscious.13 Thomas Murton was appointed Warden of the Tucker Prison Farm in February 1967. His efforts at reforming the prison provided the basis for the film Brubaker (1980). His first reform measures were to abolish corporal punishment and to fire the most sadistic guards. He then organized the prisoners to elect two councils. One of the councils, composed of Murton and three inmates, decided work assignments and levels of custody. The other council, also composed of three inmates and Murton, met weekly to conduct disciplinary hearings and to hear complaints from staff and prisoners. Although Murton was able to make major reforms and to raise the morale of the prisoners, his efforts were cut short by his superiors who sacked him in March 1968.14

12 Conover, New Jack, p. 197. 13 Vernetta D. Young, “Corporal Punishment,” pp. 115–117. In McShane and Williams, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons 14 Vivien Stern, A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998, pp. 258–259.

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PRISON REFORMS 1966

OF

WILLIAM R. CONTE, M.D.,

IN

WASHINGTON STATE,

The following section borrows heavily from the writings of my friend and colleague the psychiatrist Dr. William R. Conte, and from my conversations with him. His book, Is Prison Reform Possible?, tells the fascinating story of the reform movement he established in the 1950s and ’60s in Washington. Another enlightening feature of his book is his lively account of the irrational but understandable resistance to the reforms by the guards and others who worked in the penal institutions.15 As Director of Institutions for the State of Washington, Conte’s aim in administering Washington’s prisons was to change their approach from punishment to treatment. Dr. Conte noted that prison personnel showed no interest in the needs of the prisoners or their growth and development. Correctional officers viewed their work as solely a custodial job chiefly aimed at guarding the prisoners. Most guards were uninformed about the people with whom they were working, and they viewed rehabilitation and treatment as unacceptable and foreign ideas.16 Dr. Conte writes, “Prison reform called for respect, compassion, and consideration for others — attitudes that prison employees had not previously been admonished to assume.”17 At the heart of the problem in Washington prisons, according to Conte, was the rejecting and abusive way the prisoners were being treated by the prison employees. After he had an opportunity to observe interactions between prisoners and their “keepers,” he became convinced that the prisoners felt degraded and dehumanized by their surroundings and longed to be recognized as human. “Unfortunately, this recognition was not significantly forthcoming in either direct communication nor in more subtle exchanges with staff. There was no way the rigid and militaristic attitude of the prison environment could be interpreted as accepting of the individual as the human being he was.”18 According to Conte, the staff showed little understanding of the prisoners, of the problems they may have had, or even of the antisocial behaviors that had led to their incarceration. Staff did not concern themselves with how they might help the prisoners or support their reformation. Dr. Garrett Hynes, the Director of the Department of Institutions for the State of Washington during the early years of Conte’s reform movement, expressed doubt as to whether the creation of a more therapeutic atmosphere in prisons was possible. His doubt came from his many years of experience in Michigan as 15 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible? 16 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, pp. 34–36. 17 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 23. 18 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 26

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a prison warden. Hynes feared that punitive attitudes were so deeply ingrained in prison staffs that changing them to endorse a treatment or rehabilitation approach was difficult and perhaps impossible. The guards and other staff members lacked psychological-mindedness, and few had any education beyond high school. The concept that treatment rather than punishment would not only be better for the prisoners but also for society was incomprehensible to most guards.19 In his on-site visits to the prisons, Conte noted the emotional distance and hostility existing between the staff and the prisoners, in which the latter “assumed a subservient and often humiliated, humble, and passive attitude toward staff. Many times staff communications with residents [prisoners] dripped with sarcasm while responses from residents reflected overt fear and painful submission.”20 Attitudes [of staff] in general were not conducive to the treatment of residents [prisoners]. There was no way the institutions could be viewed as serving the long range needs of the state. Offenders were off the streets, but what was happening behind the walls too frequently brought no real chance for a safer society after the individuals were released. Instead, there was a near guarantee that such treatment would lead to greater frustration, anger, and more negative acting out.”21

Conte’s description of the way prisoners were treated by guards emphasized the systematic disrespect and denigration of the prisoners. Conte observed “a host of activities that tended to depreciate the resident [prisoner] and intensify his angry feelings. The resident was certainly not being helped.”22 Efforts to help prisoners by providing counseling sessions were sabotaged by the rule that all communications in such sessions could be used against the inmate. Unlike psychotherapy or counseling sessions everywhere else, there was no rule of confidentiality to protect the privacy and rights of the prisoners. The most cruel and deeply dehumanizing action was one of isolating prisoners in small, dark strip cells. Prisoners who violated a rule or simply displeased a guard were placed in these cells without their clothes. The prisoners who were isolated were visited only at mealtimes. “The normal physiological activities were cared for through a hole in the floor which, to be unpleasantly frank, did not have flushing facilities. Men incarcerated under such conditions were sometimes kept there for weeks at a time. Their spirits were broken.”23

19 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 36. 20 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 64. 21 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 65. In his efforts to show more respect for inmates, Conte called them “residents” rather than prisoners. 22 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 67. 23 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 68.

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The reforms Conte instituted included abolition of the strip cell, the cessation of mail censorship, and the establishment of the right to make private collect telephone calls. One of the most controversial reforms was the establishment in the prison of a Resident Governmental Council. This revolutionary change allowed the Resident Council (made up of prisoners) to establish rules, regulations, and procedures, which, with the endorsement of the superintendent, could function as an educational venture and create a more harmonious institution.24 Conte’s other reforms included adding rehabilitative services such as psychotherapy, counseling, academic and vocational training, social, religious, and vocational opportunities, as well as probation and parole services.25 The traditional punitive approach was based on intimidation and violence, which were often abusive to prisoners and engendered intense anger, even rage, in the prisoners. Conte’s reform movement was an effort to rehabilitate prisoners by requiring a nonviolent, democratic, participatory approach to helping prisoners. The Resident (prisoner) Council, acting under the supervision of the superintendent, was the teaching tool used to convey the fundamentals of democracy and community participation to those who had not learned it before their incarceration.26 The guards’ lack of interest in learning new rehabilitative methods and approaches was supported by their union, which favored the traditional punitive methods. Conte’s reform movement was sabotaged by a combination of groups who opposed him and his more humane approaches; these included the guards and certain state officials. The punitive approach then won a resounding victory. In July 1971, Dr. Conte resigned and returned to the private practice of psychiatry. Walla Walla Prison regressed, as it were, back to the harsh and violent ways existing before the reformer William Conte came on the scene. Conte ascribed the failure of the reform movement to the unwillingness of the guards to cooperate in the reform program he instituted. “The guards in spite of extensive training in the Reform Movement, had not really changed. Perhaps they had even regressed. They still viewed their charges as animals.”27 After Conte resigned, the conflict between the staff and prisoners escalated and the prison became more violent. Some reforms, including the Resident Governmental Council, were dissolved as the union of guards fought for a return to traditional punitive approaches. On July 1, 1979, guard brutality reached the apex 24 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 95. Note the similarity between Conte’s plan for a Resident Governmental Council and Osborne’s introduction of a similar self-governing entity, the Mutual Welfare League. 25 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 71. 26 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 118. 27 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 126.

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of sadism when a guard raped a prisoner with a nightstick. Overcrowding in the 1970s contributed to rising tension and increasing violence at the Walla Walla Prison. In the 1960s, only three inmates had murdered other inmates — in the 1970s twenty-three prisoners murdered other prisoners.28 The guards’ rejecting attitude toward the prisoners, together with their need to maintain a rigid control over them, served the guards as an unconscious defense against anxieties over their own helplessness and loss of power.29 The Roman Catholic scholar Chesterton is reported to have commented that, “Christianity has not worked because it has never been tried.” Much the same holds true for prison reform. Over and over, a few aspects of reform have been tried for a short time and then rejected by others in positions of power who want to maintain a punitive approach to the treatment of prisoners. Dr. Garrett Hynes said, “These [reform] practices have never been adequately implemented.”30 Abusive and inhumane approaches in dealing with prisoners prevail today, even more so than in Conte’s time, especially given the severe overcrowding of prisons in the past thirty-five years.

PRISON REFORM AND MENTAL HOSPITAL REFORM — A COMPARISON Dr. Conte believed his inspired efforts to reform the prisons could replicate the success he and other psychiatrists had made in reforming state mental hospitals. The reform movement for public mental hospitals in the 1950s and ’60s involved the transformation of mental hospitals from institutions that had previously provided mainly custodial care to healing institutions where active treatment was given to patients. The problems in prisons today are similar to those our country had in public mental hospitals before about 1950. The hospitals were overcrowded, mainly with chronic patients, and few mental-health professionals were working in these institutions. (By mental-health professionals I mean psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses.) The overcrowding and lack of adequate staff meant that the care given was merely custodial and that few of the patients received any kind of psychiatric treatment. For example, during my college summer vacation in 1947 I worked as an attendant at Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake, Washington. While the hospital had over 2,000 psychiatric patients it had only one trained psychiatrist, two physicians (who were recent refugees from Europe), and a seventy-sevenyear-old semi-retired surgeon. There were no trained psychologists, psychiatric 28 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 161. 29 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 33. 30 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 34.

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nurses, or social workers. Almost the only treatment provided was electric shock treatment and that was given only to a few selected patients on the admitting wards. The situation today is far different. Both public and private psychiatric hospitals today have trained psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and social workers, and nearly all patients receive some kind of treatment, including individual or group psychotherapy, psychotropic medications, and the like. The reforms carried out in the 1950s and ’60s in the hospital care of the mentally ill also included changes on the part of the staff in the ways they interacted with patients. Those leading the reforms (men such as Karl and William Menninger, Bill Conte, and others) understood the prime therapeutic importance of the quality of the relationships between the staff and the patients. The concepts of milieu therapy and the therapeutic environment took hold, and all hospital employees were trained in offering emotional support and other humane forms of psychological help to patients. The movement to change public mental hospitals from a custodial to a treatment orientation proved to be a workable and effective reform. The changes in staff attitudes, approaches, and methods recommended by the reformers became widely accepted in the US as well as in Europe. One reason the mental hospital reform movement was successful was that it was in the main supported both by the hospital staff as well as by the general public. In contrast, the many attempts at prison reform have been aborted in large part because of a lack of support, both from the prison staff and from the general public. The attitudes and approaches of most guards in America’s prisons are much different and in some ways antithetical to the attitudes of mental-health professionals working in mental hospitals. In what follows, I present some generalizations about the differences in the interpersonal and social milieu in mental hospitals and penal institutions. Mental-health professionals are respectful of their patients’ autonomy and attentive to the emotional needs of their patients. They use nonviolent psychological methods and medications for relieving the emotional disturbances of their charges and for the prevention of violence. They attempt to be healers in the ways they interact with their patients. Punishment is forbidden in mental hospitals, but is expected and common in prisons. The deprivation of basic social, spiritual, recreational, and other needs is common in prisons, but uncommon in mental hospitals. Prison guards avoid close or personal relationships with prisoners and they are trained to be detached and emotionally distant from them. Guards tend to respond to antisocial or unruly behavior with punitive, coercive, and violent approaches. In prisons the punitive approach is established, contained, and spelled out in the laws and policies governing the management of incarcerated prisoners, 107


and enacted in the traditional ways the prison staff (mainly the guards) interacts with and relates to the prisoners. According to the former Sing Sing guard Ted Conover, the training he received as a guard made no mention of treatment, rehabilitation, or educative methods for helping prisoners.31 Sergeant Rusty Bloom, superintendent of the New York Academy for the Training of Correction Officers (guards), gave an opening speech to a new class of correction-officer trainees, a class that included Conover. He concluded his talk by saying that “The job was about care, custody, and control. The gray uniforms are the good guys, and the green uniforms are the bad guys. That’s what it’s all about.”32 Another speaker, Tom Testo, said to the trainees: “Inmates were the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. And we have to be with them every day.”33

CUSTODY AND PUNISHMENT VERSUS PSYCHIATRY AND TREATMENT Guards come to the prison with the objective of punishing offenders and protecting society. Members of the professions (psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers, vocational counselors, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, and the like) come to the prison in order to promote the rehabilitation, health, and education of prisoners. “Yet, they cannot, in fact, pursue this goal.”34 Psychiatrists Powelson and Bendix discuss the reasons why it is so difficult, often impossible, for psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals working in prisons to promote the rehabilitation of prisoners. Custodial officers (guards) “look at the activities of the other division [e.g., psychiatry] as evidence of misguided humanitarianism.”35 At a psychiatric staff conference in a prison, the staff members complained that “whenever the inmates applied for psychiatric treatment, the guards addressed them as ‘ding’ or ‘queer.’ ”36 Medical and psychiatric aid in prisons is “subordinated to the aims of punishment or detention.”37 Powelson and Bendix describe the conflict between the goals and methods of custody (guards) and the therapeutic goals of psychiatry as irreconcilable. Under the conditions extant in the prison, the authoritarian and punitive approach to the prisoner will determine the practice and personnel of the psychiatric ward. The kind of professional person who could function effectively 31 Conover, New Jack, p. 41. 32 Conover, New Jack, p. 16. 33 Conover, New Jack, p. 33. 34 Harvey Powelson and Reinhard Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” pp. 459–481. In Arnold M. Rose, ed., Mental Health and Mental Disorders. New York: W. W. Norton, 1955, p. 467. 35 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 468. 36 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 467. 37 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 469.

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in the punitive atmosphere of prisons would have the characteristics of the authoritarian personality. Such persons have a strong drive for power and external prestige. Sadistic and controlling qualities are prominent in their relationships with others. Such persons achieve some feelings of security through compulsive routines, order, discipline, and rigidity. Drs. Powelson and Bendix conclude that the very personality characteristics that are liabilities in psychiatric practice in the world outside the prison turn into assets in a prison setting.38 Punitive practices in prisons are often falsely represented as designed for the prisoners’ rehabilitation. Drs. Powelson and Bendix question “whether an admittedly punitive treatment of the prisoner might not be preferable to a punitive treatment under the pretense of rehabilitation,” and they argue persuasively against a false representation of whatever treatment is adopted.39 Note that psychiatrists Powelson and Bendix make essentially the same criticisms about crazy-making, false representations of punishment (see Chapter 14, where I describe parents who, while they are spanking their child, tell the youngster that the beating is being “done for your own good” or — even worse — because God commands the parents to beat them). Why do the guards, generally speaking, despise the prisoners? The psychiatrists Powelson and Bendix conclude, “The moral depravity of the prisoner becomes, therefore, an assumption which is necessary for the self-esteem of the guard, because it implies that his authority is symbolic of justice, regardless of how he exercises it.”40

PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION ARE FUNDAMENTALLY INCOMPATIBLE — IT’S NOT POSSIBLE TO REFORM A PERSON AND AT THE SAME TIME PUNISH HIM Although adding psychiatric treatment and diagnostic services to jails and prisons has had beneficial effects, the therapeutic effectiveness of psychiatric facilities in penal institutions is severely compromised by the fact that such units are at cross-purposes with other punitive elements of the system. Dr. Conte quotes approvingly the transactions of the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline held in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 12–18, 1870: The supreme aim of prison discipline is the reformation of criminals, not the infliction of vindictive suffering. . . . While few are reformed, the mass still leave the penitentiary as hardened and dangerous as when they entered, in many cases, more so. It is evident, therefore, that our aims and

38 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 476. 39 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 478 40 Powelson and Bendix, “Psychiatry in Prison,” p. 479.

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Crimes of Punishment our methods need to be changed, so that practice shall conform to theory, and the process of public punishment be made, in fact as well as pretence, a process of reformation.”41

What was written more than 135 years ago in the above quotation is as true today as it was then. All of it is true except the last and italicized phrase: “[that] the process of public punishment be made, in fact as well as pretense, a process of reformation.” Punishment and reformation are fundamentally incompatible with each other in principle as well as in practice. One cannot serve two masters at the same time. There is no way anyone can transform the “process of public punishment” into a “process of reformation.” By punishing an offender with involuntary incarceration as well as other even more severe types of punishment, the punishing institution tends to vitiate and impair any efforts toward assisting the offender to reform. Dr. Garrett Hynes, a prison administrator and a colleague of Dr. Conte, was aware of the basic incompatibility of punitive and rehabilitation approaches. He wrote, “Another fact of which the ‘treat ’em rough’ advocates should be reminded is that a program which emphasizes the punitive and one which stresses the corrective cannot go hand in hand. You cannot have a regimen which aims at severity and one that aims at understanding treatment in the same institution.”42 One important reason the prison reforms discussed in these pages did not endure is because they were incompatible with the laws and traditions governing and regulating America’s criminal justice system’s overriding emphasis on punishment. The malignant cancer at the heart of the criminal justice system is the legal requirement for punishing offenders. This basic defect in the whole criminal justice system cannot be permanently corrected by introducing educative, reformative, and treatment methods as helpful, even sometimes curative, as those approaches might be in a less toxic environment than a prison. What is required are not more band-aids or methods for temporarily relieving symptoms. What is needed is radical surgery, and by that I mean eliminating from our laws any requirements to punish offenders. We are not going to effectively treat, educate, or reform offenders until we stop punishing them. George Bernard Shaw asserted that no reform of our treatment of criminals is possible until “the vice of vengeance is unconditionally eradicated.”43

41 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 5. Italics are mine. 42 Conte, Is Prison Reform Possible?, p. 34. 43 George Bernard Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946, p. 119.

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CHAPTER 9. ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY In this chapter my aim is to review and critique the major arguments for and against the death penalty. Arguments for the death penalty come from general deterrence theory and retribution theory. The arguments opposed to the death penalty include the belief that state killing is immoral and are supported by the growing awareness that the workings of the criminal justice system are unfair to many citizens. Another argument against state killing stems from brutalization theory, which holds that the sight or news of an execution may have a brutalizing effect on others, an effect that may incite individuals to commit violent acts including murder. Over time, there have been marked changes in the US regarding imposition of the death penalty. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, America led the world in a movement against capital punishment. Even before the Civil War, three states had abolished the death penalty. Gradually more and more states passed laws against the death penalty, to the extent that in the years between 1968 and 1978 there was not a single execution in the USA. However, after about 1976, the tide of popular opinion in America turned toward adopting the death penalty for certain crimes, and capital punishment became the law in thirty-eight states. In 1994 there were 2,870 prisoners on death row in the US. Fifty-one percent were white, forty percent were black, and eight percent were Hispanic. Forty were women.1 A majority of those under the sentence of death are held in the 1 Charles B. Fields. “Death Row,” pp. 142–143. In McShane and Williams, Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 142.

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South, with Texas, California, and Florida having the largest death row populations. Nearly eighty-five percent of executions in the US have taken place in the Southern states of the old Confederacy.2

THE MORAL ARGUMENT FOR ABOLITION In other times and other places the moral argument was a powerful force for abolishing the death penalty. This was so in the United States in the late nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century, the death penalty had been done away with in all of the democratic countries except the United States, Japan, and Turkey. The moral argument against the death penalty was much more widely accepted in America prior to about 1970. The moral argument for abolition of the death penalty may be the most important and persuasive argument, but it seems to have gone out of style. In a resolution presented to the House of Delegates of the Oregon Bar Association, attorney Marc Kramer pleaded for abolition of the death penalty, without even mentioning the moral argument against state killing: Member Resolution — Opposes Death Penalty Whereas, the Oregon State Bar opposes the death penalty under current Oregon law for one or more of the following reasons: 1) Historically, innocent persons have been executed. Errors in the criminal justice system are inevitable. The risk of executing the innocent is unacceptable; 2) The death penalty is costly. It diverts resources from other law enforcement and important human service needs; and 3) There is no substantial evidence that the death penalty deters murder any more than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the Oregon Bar supports the replacement of Oregon’s death penalty for aggravated murder with the sanction of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.3

In the 1960s there was much debate on the reasons why America should or should not have its Armed Forces in Vietnam fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Several different reasons were given why Americans should not be fighting in Vietnam, for example, that we couldn’t win without using nuclear bombs. The public was both startled and enlightened by Noam Chomsky’s statement that it was morally wrong to invade and make war in Vietnam. It is rare to hear such a clear statement about the immorality of violence. Other reasons currently in vogue for opposing the death penalty, though valid, seem to me less important than the moral argument. The great spiritual leaders, past and present, oppose state murder. 2 Robert M. Bohm. “Executions in the United States,” pp. 198–201. In McShane and Williams, Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 200. 3 Oregon State Bar, House of Delegates Agenda, p. 15. Presenter Marc Kramer, 1999.

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Chapter 9. Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN — SPIRITUAL ADVISOR TO A CONDEMNED MURDERER In 1982, the Roman Catholic nun Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sunnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers. Sunnier was sentenced to die in the electric chair at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before the execution, Sister Prejean came to know Patrick, who was as terrified as his victims had been when he first frightened them and then killed them. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose task it was to execute Patrick, some of whom confided to her their doubts about the morality of what they were doing.4 Out of her close and dedicated interactions with all those connected with the execution comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through the criminal justice’s system for capital punishment. Prejean is equally empathic and understanding of the desperate plight of the condemned killer as well as the rage of the bereaved relatives of the murdered victims. Both the book Dead Man Walking and the later movie based on the book provide a heart-warming story of this compassionate woman and the people to whom she ministered. In a more recent book, Sister Prejean writes about persons who were executed and who were innocent.5 In her review of Prejean’s The Death of Innocents, Hilary Mantel writes,

The Death of Innocents is a deeply conceived and convincing book. Now we know what’s wrong: racial bias, bias against the poor, inept counsel, overzealous prosecutors trying to make [a] name, self-serving justices, missing witnesses, careless science, coerced confessions. Add in the use of jail-house informants, the propensity of police officers to lie, and their inability to reason about the facts of a case, and you have a recipe for the continuing conviction and death of innocent people.6

In the quotation immediately above, I counted eleven harmful conditions that can contribute to the wrongful executions of some prisoners. None of these eleven conditions are specifically or only related to capital punishment cases. All eleven of these conditions are common problems in the criminal justice system, and all of them often have destructive effects, not only on those innocent prisoners who are wrongfully executed, but also on the millions of other prisoners who are incarcerated in our inhumane prisons. Both of Prejean’s books provide a powerful moral argument for abolishing the death penalty.

4 Prejean, Dead Man Walking. 5 Sister Helen Prejean, The Death of Innocents: An Eyeful Account of Wrongful Executions. New York: Random House, 2004. 6 Hilary Mantel, “The Right to Life.” New York Review of Books 52(8), May 12, 2005, pp. 7–8.

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The French philosopher Albert Camus’ essay, “Reflections on the Guillotine,” emphasized that no government is ever innocent enough or wise enough to lay claim to so absolute a power as death:

Society provides sovereignty to eliminate the evil ones from her midst as if she were virtue itself. Like an honorable man killing his awkward son and remarking: “Really, I didn’t know what to do with him” . . . to assert, in any case, that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today.7

Camus confronts the reader with the moral contradiction inherent in a public policy that itself imitates the violence it claims to abhor. In our country, violence that is premeditated is seen as the worst of all. “Many laws consider a premeditated crime more serious than a crime of pure violence. . . . For them to be equivalent, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months; such a monster is not encountered in private life.”8 But we do find such a “monster” in the criminal justice system. The cruelty and suffering it inflicts on the prisoners is often much more prolonged than what the prisoner had inflicted on his or her victims.

GENERAL DETERRENCE AND THE DEATH PENALTY Some people believe capital punishment is justified because it deters people from committing murder. The belief in the value of deterrence rests on the mistaken assumption that human beings always think before they act, and then base their actions on a rational evaluation of the gains and losses involved. The theory that the death penalty will deter a citizen from committing murder assumes that the murderer, before or during the violent act of killing someone, is capable of making a rational decision to not commit murder because punishment by death would be the outcome. The above assumptions, though dear to some attorneys, have been abandoned long ago by psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and experts in the social and behavioral sciences. Many homicides are passionate actions taken against someone the murderer hates intensely. Overcome by their hatred, such persons do not consider the long-term consequences of their impulsively destructive behavior.

7 Albert Camus, “Reflections on the Guillotine.” In Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, trans. Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage Books, 1974, pp. 225–226. 8 Camus, “Reflections on the Guillotine,” p. 199.

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Hugo Bedau’s 1967 review of the results of statistical studies of the deterrent effect of capital punishment concluded they were inconclusive.9 For a ten-year period, the author W. C. Bailey examined the relationship between changes in execution rates and changes in murder rates. This investigation concluded that the findings did not support the deterrence theory regarding the death penalty.10 Stuart Banner reviewed the many articles providing scientific evidence regarding the deterrence theory of the death penalty and he concluded, “A few studies found a deterrent effect, but most did not.”11 Sister Prejean cites evidence that executions do not deter crime. In the United States, the murder rate is no higher in states that do not have the death penalty than in those that do. The homicide rate in Canada peaked in 1975, the year before the death penalty was abolished, and continued to decline for ten years afterward!12 A report in 1962 on capital punishment proposed for the United Nations concluded: “All the information available appears to confirm that such a removal [of the death penalty] has, in fact, never been followed by a notable rise in the incidence of the crime no longer punishable by death.”13 Scott Turow, an author and an attorney, was one of fourteen members of a commission appointed by Governor George Ryan of Illinois to recommend reforms of the state’s capital punishment system. Turow found no evidence that the death penalty deters people from committing murder. Turow writes: “Illinois, which has a death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the neighboring state of Michigan, which has no capital punishment but roughly the same racial makeup, income levels, and population distribution between cities and rural areas. In fact, in the last decade the murder rate in states without the death penalty has remained constantly lower than in the states that have had executions.”14 Turow also states that surveys of criminologists and police chiefs show that substantial majorities of both groups doubt that the death penalty significantly reduces the number of murders.

9 Hugo A. Bedau, The Death Penalty in America: An Anthology. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. See especially Chapters 6 and 7. 10 W. C. Bailey, “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment During the 1950s.” Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior 13:95–107, 1983. 11 Stuart Banner, “The Death Penalty’s Strange Career.” Wilson Quarterly 26:70–82, 2002, p. 77. 12 Prejean, Dead Man Walking, p. 110. 13 The quotation of the UN report is from Amnesty International, When the State Kills: The Death Penalty, a Human Rights Issue. New York: Amnesty International U.S.A., 1989, pp. 11–12. The italics are mine. 14 Scott Turow, “To Kill or Not to Kill,” pp. 38–47. The New Yorker, January 6, 2003, p. 43.

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In 1764 an Italian jurist, Cesare Beccaria, argued persuasively for abolition of the death penalty, stating that life imprisonment was a greater deterrent to crime than the death penalty.15 The prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan presents a persuasive argument against the idea that the death penalty deters violent men from committing murder. He notes that many of these men even seek the death penalty, and their desire for death by execution provides one motive for their committing murder. The suicide rate among men who have committed murder is several hundred times greater than it is among other men of the same age, sex, and race.16 In a paper I wrote on “Suicide in Murderers,” I noted that about one in three murderers commits suicide.17 Many more murderers commit suicide than are executed. The threat of being executed does not deter these violent men from killing others. The inmates studied by Gilligan were in a state of despair prior to their incarceration. Many of them had made suicide attempts before they were jailed. Others attempt or complete suicide while they are in prison or after their release. Gilligan writes that:

No group is more strongly and widely in favor of capital punishment than are the murderers and other prison inmates. They will even impose it on themselves and each other when the State fails to do so, which is why I feel I am living in “cloud-cuckoo-land” when I hear people suggesting that capital punishment will deter murder and induce more “reverence for life.” The [violent] men I know already feel so spiritually dead that they long for physical death as well.18

Though it would be a presumptuous mistake to claim that no one is deterred from committing murder because of the death penalty, the available evidence indicates that the death penalty is most likely not a deterrent for most people.

RETRIBUTION — THE IRRATIONAL DOCTRINE OF IMMACULATE EXECUTION Those who favor retribution often conceal their feelings of revenge through what has been called the doctrine of immaculate execution. The ironic title of a chapter in Professor of Law Austin Sarat’s book, When the State Kills, is “Killing Me Softly: Capital Punishment and the Technologies for Taking Life.” He ends the chapter with this sentence:

The survival of state killing as an exercise of sovereign power depends on its ability to respond to the return of revenge, while being subject, even if against its will, to an unending search for technologies that in their capacity to kill with a pretense of humanity allow those who kill both to end life and, at the same time, to believe themselves to be the guardians of a

15 Cesare Beccaria, An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene), trans. Edward Ingraham. Philadelphia: Philip Nicklin, 1819, p. 105. 16 Gilligan, Violence, p. 41. 17 Theo. L. Dorpat, “Suicide in Murderers.” Psychiatry Digest 17:51–55, 1966. 18 Gilligan, Violence, p. 42. Italics are mine.

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Chapter 9. Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty moral order that, in part, bases its claims to superiority on its condemnation of killing.19

In short, the criminal justice system by its “pretense of humanity” denies the wrongfulness of state killing. The criminal justice system seeks to justify itself and its violent actions by denying the violence (including murder) it commits against offenders. For example, Robert Wolf wrote that violence is “the illegitimate or unauthorized use of force to effect decisions against the will or desire of others. Thus murder is an act of violence, but capital punishment by a legitimate state is not.”20 Does Wolf believe we change the facts by changing the name we use for labeling those facts? Killing another human being is a violent and immoral action whether it is done by a person or by the state. Together with Albert Camus, I contend that there is no real difference between capital punishment and murder.21

RETRIBUTION The theory of retribution asserts that the punishment — even the killing — of certain lawbreakers is justified because it gives the wrongdoers what they deserve. The major point of my discussion that follows is the same as the one made by Justice Oliver W. Holmes: “retribution is vengeance in disguise.”22 The doctrine of retribution has commonly been used to deny the feelings of revenge as well as the enactment of those feelings by punishing, even executing, offenders. According to attorney Martha Duncan, “The retributivist theory of punishment depends upon the idea that a tribute, or price, must be paid to vindicate the law (general retribution) or avenge the victim (special retribution).”23 The motivation for revenge is probably the least discussed but the strongest and most pervasive force in criminal court cases and it involves not only the victims and their relatives but many others. Connected with the victim’s desire for revenge is hatred for the offender and a defiant unwillingness to either forget or forgive the victimizer. Booker T. Washington said, “And you think this revenge will restore your damaged pride! You are wrong to the depths of your soul. Vengeance does nothing but perpetuate more vengeance and on and on until some race can find the 19 Austin Sarat, When the State Kills. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 84. Emphasis is mine. 20 Robert Wolf, “Violence and the Law.” In Robert Wolf, ed., The Rule of Law. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971, p. 59. Emphasis is mine. 21 Camus, “Reflections on the Guillotine,” p. 238. 22 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 57. Sarat quotes Oliver W. Holmes, The Common Law, Boston, Little Brown, 1909. 23 Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, p. 50.

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strength to say ‘No, I will not avenge. I shall stand with dignity until my enemies are won over because they honor and respect me,’ and only when that happens will we have our pride back.”24 In his book Austin Sarat examines the enormous theoretical energy that has been put into the effort to distinguish revenge from retribution; his discussion reveals the instability of the revenge–retribution distinction. In my opinion, arguments for distinguishing between the two (revenge and retribution) are in the main specious. The doctrine of retribution has unconsciously been constructed over the past few centuries to conceal from consciousness the underlying feelings and motives of revenge. The law avenges contempt for its authenticity by the punishment of those who violate its prohibitions. As the philosopher Michel Foucault has written, “In the execution of the most ordinary penalty, in the most punctilious respect of legal forms, reign the active forces of revenge.”25 According to attorney Clarence Darrow, “All punishment and violence is largely mixed with feelings of revenge — from the brutal father who strikes his helpless child, to the hangman who obeys the orders of the judge; with every man who lays violent unkind hands upon his fellow the prime feeling is that of hatred and revenge.”26 The American criminal justice system has sought to expunge revenge and muffle vengeance in the search for a supposedly superior, more rational system of justice. The impossible aim has been to make legal justice retributive without being vengeful.27 “Retribution, with its advertised virtues of measured proportionality, cool detachment, and consistency, is contrasted with vengeance — the voice of the others, the primitive, the savage call of unreason, a ‘wildness’ inside the house of law, which by nature, will not succumb to rational forms of justice.”28 Despite the persistent best efforts of America’s criminal justice system to rid itself of vengeful motives, “revenge almost always is just below the surface of criminal punishment. Its banishment can never be complete.”29 Freud called this the “return of the repressed”: that which one unconsciously represses from one’s conscious awareness often returns to consciousness in disguised ways. The repression of revenge has led to its return disguised as the notion of retribution.

24 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 38. Sarat is quoting from the film Ragtime (1981). 25 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995, p. 48. 26 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, p. 56. 27 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 39. 28 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 39. 29 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 43.

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Discussions of retribution have served as a smoke screen to conceal and repress revenge. Every effort to distinguish retribution from revenge fails, because — unwittingly and inevitably — revenge returns in a judicial disguise. As Professor Sarat points out, vengeance hides itself in contemporary notions of justice.30 The current demands for victims’ rights and the clamor of victims and their relatives for their voice to be heard in the trial of criminals are other ways in which revenge has explicitly reasserted itself in recent times. The affectless and impersonal quality of some legal scholars’ scholarly writings on the issue of retribution betrays the authors’ unconscious aim of concealing the cruelty and horrors of the way America’s criminal justice system kills people. The label of retribution itself, as well as the arguments that retribution justifies punishment, including capital punishment, are efforts to conceal from the writer and others the immoral, destructive nature of our punishment system and state killing. The American philosopher Robert Nozick argues that retribution differs from revenge and that retribution can be distinguished from revenge because it is “on its surface at least, less primitive.”31 The point of my argument is that the apparent differences are only at the surface, and that the notion of retribution has been used unconsciously to repress and/or deny underlying revengeful feelings and motives.

THE NEW ABOLITIONISM — THE ARGUMENT OF FAIRNESS Professor Sarat favors a new type of abolition of capital punishment, one that that no longer takes the shape of a frontal attack on the immorality of a state killing. He and others in recent years have used legal arguments against the death penalty that involve constitutional rights other than the Eighth Amendment, in particular due process and equal protection.32 These arguments support those who say our present laws and/or procedures are not fair because they deny due process for some defendants and do not allow for equal protection for all citizens. The new abolitionism was also expressed in a resolution seeking a moratorium on capital punishment passed in February 1997 by the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA requested all jurisdictions authorized to impose capital punishment to cease carrying out the death penalty until the jurisdiction implements policies and procedures constructed to “1) ensure that death penalty cases

30 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 43. 31 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 42; Sarat is quoting from Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981, p. 368. 32 Sarat, When the State Kills, pp. 250–252.

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are administered fairly and impartially, in accordance with due process, and 2) minimize the risk that innocent people may be executed.”33 The 1997 report by the ABA presents three persuasive reasons for a moratorium on executions. The first is the failure of most states to provide competent counsel in capital cases. The second recognizes the recent erosion in post-conviction legal protections for capital defendants. These legal protections were previously helpful in minimizing the execution of innocent defendants. The third reason for the moratorium is the harmful existence of racial discrimination in many American courts. In 1997, the ABA criticized our present criminal justice system’s handling of capital punishment cases for its lack of fairness. Their report found that “the efforts to forge a fair capital punishment jurisprudence have failed. Today, administrating of the death penalty, far from being fair and consistent, is instead a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency.”34 Very few of those persons who are charged with murder have enough money to pay for an effective legal defense. Therefore they are dependent on the small amounts of money the states set aside for paying for the legal defense of alleged murderers. As a result, many prisoners receive young, inexperienced, or incompetent legal defense. After twenty years of deliberating on capital cases reaching the Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun concluded that there was no way within the existing judicial system “to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor.” He announced, “From this day forward I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”35 I agree with Justice Blackmun’s idea that it is probably impossible to prevent the more subtle and unconscious forms of racism from creeping into the workings of the criminal justice system.36 Research on American courts shows that defendants are more likely to receive a death sentence if their victim is white rather than black, and that in some areas African Americans tend to receive the death penalty more often than do white defendants.37 In May 2001, the New Hampshire legislature became the first state to vote for repeal of the death penalty in more than two decades. One Republican Representative explained his vote for repeal by saying, “There are no millionaires on 33 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 254. Sarat is quoting from American Bar Association House of Delegates, “Recommendation 107,” February 3, 1997. 34 American Bar Association, Annual Report, vol. 122, no. 1, 1997, p. 375. 35 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 253. Sarat quotes Collins v. Collins, 510 U.S., 1145 [1994]. 36 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 277. 37 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 256.

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death row. Can you honestly say that you’re going to get equal justice under the law when, if you’ve got the money, you are going to get away with it?”38 Today many of those who favor abolition of the death penalty support the fairness argument, which says that certain classes of people (e.g., the poor and the nonwhite) are being treated unfairly by the system. This relatively new group of fairness abolitionists has provided abundant data to support their stance. What has not been so widely promulgated is that the fairness argument applies to the whole criminal justice system and not only to capital punishment cases. In other words, disadvantaged groups such as the poor and the nonwhite often receive unfair treatment at nearly all levels of the workings of the criminal justice system. There are very few rich people in our jails or prisons! The help of competent legal representation is one of several ways in which the rich avoid serving time in jail or prison.

THE EDUCATION OF GOVERNOR RYAN To my mind, the most persuasive argument for the unfairness of the death penalty has been made by the former Governor of Illinois, George Ryan. I label this section “The Education of Governor Ryan” because his disturbing experiences with the criminal justice system led him to reconsider his views on the death penalty. At first an advocate of the death penalty, he changed his attitude on it when he witnessed the unfairness in the workings of the criminal justice system in his state. Governor Ryan, a conservative Republican, had the courage to use his powers as governor to block the execution of many felons. In Illinois in 1999, some investigators found that Anthony Porter, who had been on death row, was innocent. Ryan was confronted with this case only about one month after his inauguration. The investigators were undergraduate journalism students at Northwestern University, led by their professor David Protess. The growing evidence in the Porter case and several similar cases that indicated the State of Illinois might kill an innocent person gave opponents of the death penalty in Illinois and other states an argument against it.39 In January 2000, Ryan exonerated Illinois’ thirteenth death-row prisoner, Steve Manning. Illinois then gained the unusual distinction of exonerating more death-row convicts than the dozen it had executed since reinstating the death penalty in 1977.40 38 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 259. Sarat quotes from John Kifner, “A State Votes to End Its Death Penalty.” New York Times, May 19, 2000, A8. 39 Daniel Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” pp. 10–23, 27. Amnesty Now, vol. XXIX, Spring 2002, p. 11. 40 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 11–12.

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In 2000, Ryan established a Commission on Capital Punishment to study the policies and practices in the Illinois courts for handling death-sentence cases. The commission found that all those who had been tried and sentenced to death in Illinois had suffered the effects of a deeply flawed judicial system. After Governor Ryan’s commission studied the capital punishment case of Chris Thomas, as well as many other defendants, the commission decided that he and many of the others were “[on] death row essentially for the crime of having the wrong lawyers.”41 Thomas had been defended by two attorneys under contract with the Lake County public defender’s office. Both attorneys were inexperienced in capital punishment cases and each of them received only three hundred dollars for their legal services.42 The legal principle of due process is breached by the criminal justice system’s repeated failure to provide expert legal counsel for those who are unable to pay for it. Just before leaving office, Ryan emptied Illinois’ death row of 163 persons by pardons and commutations of death sentences to incarceration for forty years or for life. In doing this, he created a firestorm among both the opponents of the death penalty as well as its advocates. He did this because the evidence was overwhelming that substantial numbers of those sentenced to die had been convicted on the basis of coerced confessions, uncorroborated testimony from jailhouse informants, or faulty physical evidence cancelled out by DNA evidence. This was the largest death-row commutation in US history.43 On the day before his famous speech, Governor Ryan received a long-distance call on his cell phone from Nelson Mandela in South Africa. According to Ryan, Mandela reminded him that the United States sets the example for justice and fairness for the rest of the world. Governor Ryan stated, “Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious — and therefore immoral — I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. . . . the legislature couldn’t reform it. Lawmakers won’t repeal it. But I will not stand for it. I must act.”44

FORGIVENESS OR REVENGE? Governor Ryan, in his single term in office, gradually learned about the inequalities of the legal system’s handling of capital punishment cases. The voices of another set of victims proved crucial in the education of Governor Ryan.

Jennifer Bishop lost her 25-year-old sister Nancy and brother-in-law to a 1990 double murder. A 16-year-old neighbor forced the couple into their basement, then shot the husband execution-style. Nancy, three months

41 Turow, “To Kill or Not to Kill,” p. 44. 42 Turow, “To Kill or Not to Kill,” p. 44. 43 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 9. 44 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 10.

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Chapter 9. Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty pregnant, pleaded for her life, only to be shot several times in the abdomen. As she lay dying, she scribbled in blood her family’s sign-off, ♥U. “Her last word in life was love, love in the face of evil,” says Jennifer Bishop. Nancy’s dying words galvanized Jennifer and her sister Jeanne. “When they started talking about a juvenile death penalty [for Nancy’s killer], . . . we realized that would not honor her. We can’t imagine making the death of another human being her memorial. We decided to end the cycle of violence.”45

Jennifer and Jeanne joined Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), a national group of survivors that opposes the death penalty. Jennifer recently finished a term as national chair of MVFR. She knew she and MVFR had to answer the victims’ angry and vengeful families who passionately favor the death penalty. In December 2000, Governor Ryan attended an MVFR conference at which twenty MVFR Illinois members spoke eloquently of the need for forgiveness. Ryan thus learned that some spiritually enlightened individuals are capable of overcoming their vengeful feelings and even forgiving murderers. The Chicago Tribune published a series of articles on the inequities and errors of the capital punishment system in Illinois, which focused public attention on how often the innocent had been condemned. Dennis Culloton, Governor Ryan’s press secretary, said: “He could either stand and deliver or duck and find cover. And he chose to stand and deliver.”46 What follows are some excerpts from a speech given in 2002 by Governor Ryan that emphasize the unfairness of the present system:

Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error — error in determining guilt, and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. Because of these reasons today I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates . . . The death penalty has been abolished in twelve states. In none of those states has the homicide rate increased. In Illinois last year we had about 1,000 murders; only two percent of 1,000 were sentenced to death. Where is the fairness and equality in that? You are five times more likely to get a death sentence for first degree murder in the rural area of Illinois than you are in Cook County. Where is the justice and fairness in that — where is the proportionality? The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu wrote to me this week stating that “to take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice.” He says justice allows for mercy, clemency, and compassion. These virtues are not weakness. Of the more than 160 death row inmates, 35 were African-American defendants who had been convicted or condemned to die by all-white juries. More than two-thirds of the inmates on death row were African-American. . . . Our own study showed that juries were more likely to sentence to death if the victims were white than if the victims were black — three-and-ahalf-times more likely to be exact.

45 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 12. Italics are mine. 46 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 13.

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Crimes of Punishment It is easier and more comfortable for politicians to be tough on crime and support the death penalty. It wins votes. But when it comes to admitting that we have a problem, most run for cover. . . . I started with this issue consumed about innocence. But once I studied, once I pondered what has become of our justice system, I came to care above all about fairness.47

Edmund Morgan and Marie Morgan praise Governor Ryan for his brave and humane actions, but they warn us that in the long run neither governors nor courts can make laws. “Only a change in public opinion expressed in state legislation can fix our ‘broken system’ by abolishing the death penalty. Until that happens in all fifty states, ‘deserve’ will not have much to do with whom we kill.”48

BRUTALIZATION THEORY According to the brutalization theory, the death penalty and executions, rather than acting to deter violent actions such as murder, do in fact actually increase the homicide rate through a process of brutalization. One author, William J. Bowers, claims that the effect of the death penalty is brutalization, not deterrence.49 In Chapter 7, I argue that brutalization of prison inmates is probably an important aspect of their increased criminality during and after their prison experience. Some studies show an increase in homicides immediately after publicized executions, suggesting that executions incite more murderous violence. In New York City from 1907 to 1963 an average of two more homicides occurred in each of the months following an execution than otherwise.50 Richard Hawkins summarized and discussed the evidence for the hypothesis that executions lead to an increased homicide rate by providing a model of violence.51 Clarence Darrow provides a moving argument for the brutalization theory, seeing it as an effect of punishment, and especially of public executions. In the nineteenth century and before, public hangings in Europe and America drew great crowds, sometimes reaching into the tens of thousands. Finally legislators began to realize that these scenes of violence and brutality tended to incite more violence. Governments found that many acts of violence followed public 47 Goodman, “The Conversion of Gov. Ryan,” p. 27. Italics are mine. 48 Edmund S. Morgan and Marie Morgan, “A Very Popular Penalty,” pp. 52–55. New York Review of Books, vol. L, April 10, 2003, p. 55. 49 William J. Bowers, “The Effect of the Death Penalty Is Brutalization, Not Deterrence,” pp. 49–89. In Kenneth C. Haas and James A Inciardi, eds., Challenging Capital Punishment: Legal and Social Science Approaches. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988. 50 William J. Bowers and Glenn L. Pierce, “Deterrence or Brutalization: What Is the Effect of Executions?” Crime and Delinquency 26(1980):453–484. 51 Richard Hawkins, “Cultural Spillover Theory: Some Directions for Development.” Durham, NH: Family Research Laboratory, n.d.

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hangings.52 Darrow writes, “The impression [of a public execution] must be to harden and brutalize the heart and conscience. To destroy the finer sensibilities, to cheapen human life, to breed cruelty and malice that will bear fruit in endless ways and unknown forms.”53 The brutalization theory helps explain research findings on the effects on children of watching violence on TV. The hundreds of investigations on this subject support the conclusion that a causal relation exists between the amount of exposure to TV violence and subsequent violent, antisocial behavior by the child. Summing up, I believe there is something important and true in the brutalization theory, but we need more research to determine its power to cause violent behavior. My hunch is that TV violence has a more powerful brutalization effect on most Americans (especially children) than does the death penalty. My hypothesis is based largely on the statistics showing how many hours people of all ages are exposed to TV violence. For most Americans, this extensive exposure to murderous violence on television far exceeds their exposure to stories about capital punishment in the media, either on television or otherwise.

THE COST ARGUMENT The argument that executing an offender saves money for the state because it avoids the costs of lifetime incarceration does not stand up to close scrutiny. The legal costs to the state for sentencing someone to death are many times greater than the costs of lifetime incarceration. In 2000 in the United States, the average period between conviction and execution was eleven and a half years, with the courts and attorneys turning out briefs and decisions much of the time. The cost to the state of these legal actions, reviews, and appeals is enormous, often exceeding two million dollars for a single case.

CONCLUSION This chapter has examined the reasons commonly presented to justify the death penalty (deterrence, retribution, and the cost of incarcerating for life) and finds them not valid. The major arguments against the death penalty (the moral argument, the lack of fairness in the workings of the criminal justice system) provide both ethical and practical reasons for abolishing the death penalty.

52 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, p. 63. 53 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, p. 70.

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CHAPTER 10. IS THERE A MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR PUNISHMENT? This chapter has two parts; the first discusses theories purporting to justify punishment and is mainly about the punishment of adults. The second part examines some false ideas used to perpetuate and justify the corporal punishment of children. Because the punishment inflicted on offenders by our criminal justice system involves the calculated infliction of serious mental pain, many individuals have searched for a moral justification for this punishment. Despite this desire for the justification of state-administered punishment, jurists, philosophers, and other theorists have not reached any general agreement about whether punishment should be justified or how it is to be justified. The major arguments purporting to justify punishment are those of incapacitation, retribution, general and specific deterrence, rehabilitation, and the moral education theory. Here are some brief definitions of the terms mentioned above: Incapacitation is using incarceration to render harmless to society a person otherwise inclined to commit crimes. Retribution is the intentional infliction of suffering on a criminal to the extent that he supposedly deserves it for the crime he has committed. General deterrence is the pressure that the example of one criminal’s suffering from punishment exerts on others to inhibit them from acting out their contemplated crimes. Specific deterrence is the pressure that painful memories of past punishments exert on a person to cause him to obey the law. Rehabilitation is the acquisition of skills and values that transform a criminal into a law-abiding citizen. According to this theory, punishment effects a reformative transformation in the

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offender. The moral education theory holds that punishment is an important and effective way of teaching offenders the moral wrongness of their crimes. For centuries, writers who have discussed the reasons and justifications for the corporal punishment of children have used the same or similar arguments as those who have attempted to justify the states’ punishment of adults.

INCAPACITATION Is the punishment of incarceration justified because it renders harmless (incapacitates) an offender who is a danger to society? The incarceration of offenders who are violent and dangerous to society should be done to protect society. However, today the majority of prisoners in the US, both men and women, are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes and do not present a danger to others. As prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan indicates, punishing violent inmates tends to make them more violent.1 Although incarceration of dangerous felons is justified by the need for public safety, the punishment of such offenders over and above what is required to incarcerate them is not justified. It is both possible and desirable to use nonviolent and nonpunitive methods to prevent such dangerous felons from harming others or themselves. The truth of this claim has been demonstrated thousands of times in mental hospitals, where the mentally ill who pose a danger to themselves or others can be and are pacified and calmed with nonviolent and nonpunitive approaches. Incarceration is not the only incapacitation strategy. To help forestall further criminal activity by offenders who are not deemed dangerous to others, a variety of other practical ways to prevent or at least hinder them from committing new crimes are available. For example, physicians or attorneys who commit crimes in the performance of their profession can have their license to practice taken away; the company director can be prohibited from holding a management or board position in any company; child abusers can be removed from their families. Taking a driver’s license or car away from a drunk driver can be a partially incapacitative strategy. Defrocking a priest or minister is a way of preventing offenders who are clergy from harming others. The above and other methods of incapacitation may be temporary or permanent, and all of them are less expensive for the government and much less harmful to the offender than incarceration. Professor of jurisprudence Austin Sarat writes, “State violence on this account differs from and is superior to private violence . . . because through public

1 Gilligan, Violence, p. 51.

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Chapter 10. Is There a Moral Justification for Punishment?

processes it ascertains guilt and fixes punishment and, in so doing, prevents an escalating cycle of injury – response – injury.”2 I disagree with the account Sarat gives here. He asserts that state violence (e.g., incarceration) “prevents an escalating cycle of injury – response – injury.” While incarceration does for a time break the cycle of violence between the offender, his victims, and their relatives, it does not prevent the continuation of other cycles of violence, both within the prison and following the prisoner’s release. In Chapter 4, I report studies that indicate that prisoners tend to continue committing the same kinds of crimes in prison as they committed prior to their imprisonment. Therefore, I would modify Sarat’s opinion, quoted above, in this way: Incarceration of the offender may temporarily delay what he calls “an escalating cycle of injury – response – injury,”3 but it does not prevent it. Incarceration is itself a form of violence, and as such completes the cycle of violence initiated by the offender’s violence toward some victim. Even though incarceration may temporarily halt the continuing enactment of one kind of cycle of violence involving the offender and his victim (or the victim’s surrogates), it does not prevent the offender from venting his revenge and hatred on others, either in the prison or following his release from prison. Another problem with the notion that incapacitation justifies punishment is the temporary nature of the protection to society that incarceration offers. Ninety-five percent of all prisoners will be released eventually.4 Thus, protection of society ends when the prisoner is released from prison. What’s worse is that the newly released inmate is most probably more antisocial, more confirmed in his identity as a criminal, and more likely to commit crimes than he was when he first entered the prison. Prisons do prevent prisoners from committing crimes on individuals outside the prison, but they generally do a poor job of preventing prisoners from committing violent crimes, such as murder or rape, on each other. See Chapter 4 for more on the substantial risks and dangers in being a prisoner in an American prison.

GENERAL DETERRENCE Chapter 9 presented arguments for and against the general deterrence theory regarding the death penalty. Although the preponderance of evidence weighs against the theory that the death penalty deters individuals from committing murder, general deterrence could be of possible use for a minority of individuals. 2 Sarat. When the State Kills, p. 57. Emphasis is mine. 3 Sarat, When the State Kills, p. 57. 4 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. xxii.

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In any case, the available evidence suggests that the death penalty is neither a universal nor a strong deterrent against committing murder. This chapter will briefly review the evidence for criminal sanctions (e.g., incarceration) being a general deterrent against the commission of other kinds of crimes by members of the general public. Because of the small number of scientific studies on general deterrence for crimes other than murder, we cannot rely much on these studies for a definitive answer to the question of whether the threat of punishment (other than capital punishment) does or does not prevent non-criminals from committing crimes. A review of three articles on general deterrence and drunk driving shows that one study’s findings support the general deterrence theory, whereas the other two articles found no support for general deterrence theory. Carol Falkowski found general deterrence in penalties for drunk driving. Adoption of a mandatory two-day jail sentence for all drunk drivers by most judges in Minneapolis was followed by a significant decline in drunk driving.5 W. N. Evans and his colleagues examined whether the incidence of drinking and driving was responsive to escalation of the punitive threat, and they used a national campaign against drunk driving to test predictions of general deterrence theory. They report no conclusive evidence that any specific form of punitive legislation was having a measurable deterrent effect on motor vehicle fatalities.6 Similarly, in his review of the literature on the effects of mandatory jail sentences on drunk driving, researcher Lawrence Ross found that such sentences had neither specific nor general deterrence effects.7

DETERRENCE AND THE FEAR OF PUNISHMENT Most people do not commit crimes. This is because they have a mature enough conscience, which tells them the difference between what is right and what is wrong, and not because they fear being punished if they are caught. Their conscience is the developmental product of socialization by primary institutions such as the family, school, and church. For most people the threat of state-sponsored punishment is thus irrelevant, since they abstain from criminal acts because of their conscience and not because of fear of punishment from an external authority. It is conscience and not the fear of punishment that makes civilized life possible. 5 Carol Falkowski, The Impact of Two-Day Jail Sentences for Drunk Drivers. Final Report. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1984. 6 William N. Evans, Doreen Neville, and John D. Graham, “General Deterrence of Drunk Driving: Evaluation of Recent American Policies.” Risk Analysis I:17–20, 1993. 7 Lawrence H. Ross, Confronting Drunk Driving: Social Policy for Saving Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992; see especially pages 54 and 60.

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The common belief in the value of both specific and general deterrence rests on the assumptions that humans are rational beings who think before they act. The belief that holds that humans are rational beings also includes the assumption that we base our actions on a careful and thoughtful calculation of the gains and losses involved. These assumptions, dear to some philosophers and lawyers, have long been abandoned by those of us who are mental health professionals or who work in the social sciences. Many people, including lawyers and academicians, lose sight of the irrational factors in human motivation and construct psychologically naive explanations based on mistaken views that crime grows out of conscious, rational cognition. Another weakness in the theories of both specific and general deterrence is the simple fact that, for many people, and particularly for those who are predisposed to commit crimes, threats of possible future punishment do not have the same motivating power as the immediate desires for and rewards of crime. The threat of punishment is not an effective deterrent because “most crime goes undetected, unreported, and even unforbidden.”8 According to George Bernard Shaw, it is not the severity of punishment but the certainty of punishment that deters people from committing crimes. The proportion of avowedly undetected crimes is high enough to hold out reasonable hope to the criminal that he or she will never be called to account.9 The blind spots of some philosophers on the realities of crime and punishment are exposed in the scholarly writings of contributors to the book Punishment, a work devoted to theories regarding the justification for punishment. Most of these authors are seemingly unaware of the emotional and psychological effects of punishment, or of the scientific literature on the effects of punishment. In the introduction to that book, the editors write that: “punishing criminals normally deters future criminal activity (both by the punished criminal himself and by others, impressed by the example of his punishment).”10 This assertion cannot be proven and indeed, as I indicate in various places in this book, the preponderance of evidence suggests the opposite, tending instead to disprove both the theories of specific deterrence and general deterrence, whether for the corporal punishment of children or the punishment of adults by incarceration.

8 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 84. 9 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 118. 10 A. John Simmons, Marshall Cohen, Joshua Cohen, and Charles R. Beitz, eds., Punishment: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995, p. viii. Italics are mine.

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RETRIBUTION The topic of retribution as a justification for punishment has been covered in Chapter 9, in my discussion of the death penalty. The theory of retribution applies not only to capital punishment but also to the punishment prescribed for other crimes. Another major point made in Chapter 9 was that retribution is disguised vengeance. Professor of law Robert Blecker found, at Lorton Central Prison, that most prison officers as well as inmates denounce retribution.11 A study done by psychologists of 351 subjects revealed that despite strongly stated preferences of most subjects for the deterrence theory, individual sentencing decisions seemed driven exclusively by “just desserts” (retribution) concerns.12 In his book Violence and the Sacred, the philosopher René Girard writes that the emergence early on of ritual sacrifice and the later development of modern justice systems are rooted in the fear of a perpetual chain of “reciprocal acts of vengeance.”13 According to Girard’s theory, the right to acts of vengeance was long ago transferred from individuals to governments. To Girard’s insightful statements, I would add this amendment: that when the individual’s so-called “right” to perform acts of vengeance is transferred from individuals to governments, it receives a new name: “retribution.” Professor Martha Nussbaum quotes Justice Holmes who quotes Sir John Stephen’s views that “the criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.”14 Criminal law in the US allows for the enactment of the passion of revenge in much the same way as marriage provides for the gratification of sexual passion. However, unlike the relation between marriage and sexual passion, the types of punishment carried out by incarceration most commonly serve no constructive purpose for anyone. Dr. David Dolinko asserts that retributivism is unable to offer a coherent, rationally defensible justification of punishment. Insofar as retributivism has not been able to justify punishment philosophically on the basis of its positive effects, it cannot appeal to the protective functions of the state to vindicate its interest in ensuing that criminals suffer.15 11 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1168. 12 K. M. Carlsworth, J. M. Darby, and P. H. Robinson, “Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Desserts as Motives for Punishment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2:284– 299, 1983. 13 René Girard, Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 13–15. 14 Martha C. Nussbaum, “Equity and Mercy,” pp. 145–187. In Simmons, Cohen, and Beitz, Punishment, p. 174. 15 David Dolinko, “Some Thoughts About Retributivism.” Ethics 101(3):537–559, 1991, pp. 537–539.

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Plato argued against retribution: “We ought not to repay injustice with injustice or to do harm to any man, no matter what we may have suffered from him.”16 Professor of philosophy Jean Hampton rejects retributivism in this way:

The retributive position is that it is somehow morally appropriate to inflict pain for pain, to take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But how is it ever morally appropriate to inflict one evil for the sake of another? How is the society that inflicts the second evil any different from the wrongdoer who has inflicted the first? He strikes first, they strike back; why is the second strike acceptable but the first not?17

One proponent of the death penalty, Professor Van Den Haag, claims that “retributionism” is not really a theory of punishment at all, just “a feeling articulated through a metaphor presented as though a theory.”18 I agree and would add that the feeling Van Den Haag alludes to is revenge or something like it. Parents who use corporal punishment, as well as the criminal justice system in this country, use the pain of punishment in order to induce offenders to repent for their offenses and to stop their antisocial activity. Many people believe the false idea that the suffering caused by the punishment leads offenders to repent and then to change their ways. The psychologist Dr. Marshall Rosenberg writes, “Punitive action . . . is based upon the assumption that people commit offenses because they are bad or evil, and [that] to correct the situation, they need to be made to repent. The ‘correction’ is undertaken through punitive action designed to make them 1) suffer enough to see the error of their ways, 2) to repent, and 3) to change.”19 Punishment, however, rather than bringing about repentance and constructive change, tends to generate resentment, shame, hostility, and a desire for revenge. These emotional responses cause and/or reinforce the opposition to the one who punishes. Moreover, these negative and painful feelings tend to bring about a repetition of the original offense or some other antisocial behavior. In short, punishment tends to incite more violence not less. The assumptions Dr. Rosenberg mentions don’t stand up to even the briefest scrutiny. In many years of work in this area, I have never known of a single instance in which someone, either a child or an adult, after being punished, has gone through the stages Rosenberg outlines (that is, suffering enough to see the error of his ways, repentance, or change. I have known individuals who have seen the error of their ways, who have repented, and who have made important 16 Plato is quoted by Hampton, “The Moral Education Theory,” pp. 112–142, in Simmons, Cohen, and Beitz, Punishment, p. 112. See Plato Crito, X, 49. 17 Hampton, “The Moral Education Theory,” in Simmons, Cohen, and Beitz, Punishment, p. 140. 18 Ernest Van Den Haag and John P. Conrad. The Death Penalty, A Debate. New York: Plenum Press, 1983, p. 28. Italics in original. 19 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 156.

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changes to correct their wrongdoing, but I have never known or read about one child or adult who went through this redemptive transformation as a response to punishment.

THE MORAL EDUCATION THEORY OF PUNISHMENT Professor Jean Hampton advances a new theory justifying punishment, which she calls “the moral education theory of punishment.” According to this theory, punishment is viewed as an important way of teaching offenders the moral wrongness of their criminal acts. In Hampton’s theory, punishment has a vital and effective educative character.20 What Hampton calls the moral educative theory of punishment is similar to, but not the same as, what previous generations of theorists have described as rehabilitation, reformation, or correction. Hampton writes, “Given that the goal of punishment, whether carried out by the state on criminals or by parents on children, is the offender’s (as well as other potential offenders’) realization of an action’s wrongness, the moral education view naturally affirms that there is a fact of the matter about what is right and what is wrong.”21 I present two reasons for opposing the idea that punishment is justified by the alleged moral education accompanying the punishment. My first argument is an ethical or moral argument. It is wrong to punish another human being because punishment causes emotional and psychic damage to the one being punished. The asserted salutary end (moral education) does not justify the violent and immoral means (i.e., punishment) used to attain the moral education. My second and perhaps more persuasive argument against the moral education theory is a pragmatic one — punishment does not work. Punishment rarely if ever teaches a moral lesson to the one being punished. Punishment seldom helps the punished person to learn and follow a moral lesson because the infliction of emotional and physical pain and shame inhibits and often even prevents the one being punished from internalizing the moral messages from the individuals or groups inflicting the punishment. What “lessons” does punishment teach? Punishment, whether it be the corporal punishment of children or the incarceration of adults, “teaches” two kinds of lessons. The first is that it’s okay to be violent to others. Secondly, the person being punished (child or adult) learns to mistrust authority. The vast discrepancy and contradiction between the painful punishment administered by the authority (whether parent, teacher, or prison guard) and the explicit message by the authority — such as, for example, “This is for your own good” — instills 20 Hampton, “The Moral Education Theory,” in Simmons, Cohen, and Beitz, Punishment, p. 116. 21 Hampton, “The Moral Education Theory,” in Simmons, Cohen, and Beitz, Punishment, p. 117.

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mistrust. Defiance, fear, shame, and hatred of authority and other disturbing and undesirable mental states often develop out of the foundation of mistrust as well as the painful loss of what had previously been a relationship founded on trust. The psychologist Dr. Marshall Rosenberg was visiting a friend, a school principal. As they sat in the principal’s office they both saw a big child hitting a smaller one. The principal quickly excused himself, rushed out to the playground, and seized the larger child. He gave him a swat and scolded him, “I’ll teach you not to hit smaller people!” When the principal returned, Rosenberg remarked, “I don’t think you taught that child what you thought you were teaching him. I suspect what he learned instead was not to hit people smaller than he is when somebody bigger — like the principal — might be watching! If anything, it seems to me that you have reinforced the notion that the way to get what you want from someone else is to hit them.”22 If the punishment is severe and prolonged as, for example, being repeatedly spanked or being incarcerated for years, the offender’s defiance may be directed against both the punishing authority and the moral code of the punishing authority. In less severe instances, the victim of punishment may retain the moral code of the punishing authority yet maintain his angry defiance because he believes the punishment he received was excessive or unfair. Many investigations of punishment, both of children and adults, show that punishment does not work! For example, the numerous studies on the effects of spanking, which is nearly always linked implicitly or explicitly with some moral education, demonstrate the ill effects of punishment. Most importantly, corporal punishment does not deter children from the antisocial behavior for which they are spanked. Punishment, whether inflicted on children or by the incarceration of adults, most often does not bring about repentance, remorse, or any positive constructive change in behavior or in the individual’s development. Parents may confuse the compliance and submissiveness some children manifest after having been spanked with remorse and/or repentance. The child’s compliance in such contexts is typically an unconscious defensive tactic designed to ward off further attacks by the punisher, and to conceal from others the intense defiance, mistrust, and shame engendered in the child by the punishment. In children who are spanked, the emotional and physical pain (and especially the admixture of shame and rage) vitiates and obstructs any moral educative efforts by those who punish.

22 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 158.

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There is yet another argument against the moral education theory and it derives from the work of the noted anthropologist Gregory Bateson, who was the first to describe double-bind communication. A double-bind communication is one in which an individual communicates to another person two mutually contradictory messages. As an example, Bateson tells the story of a mother greeting her schizophrenic son on a visitors’ day at a psychiatric hospital. At the same moment the mother says, “Come here and give your mother a hug,” her stiff, nonverbal communication is “Stay away.” The son becomes confused by his mother’s contradictory messages. At one time it was thought that confusing and disturbing double-bind messages of this kind could have played a role in the etiology of schizophrenia. Although few if any mental health professionals today believe that doublebind messages play any major role in the etiology of schizophrenia, such messages do sometimes play a part in other kinds of psychopathology following childhood trauma. I refer here to the disturbing and confusing contradictions between what parents are actually doing to their children when they are punishing (e.g., spanking them) and what they say they are doing. In your imagination, put yourself in the mind of a child who is being spanked. Imagine then what he or she may feel and think when at the same time that he feels intense shame and physical pain from the beating, he is being told by his punishing parent, “I’m doing this for your own good,” “I’m spanking you because I love you,” “I’m doing this because God (or the Bible) tells us to do this to children who misbehave,” and the like. Contradictory messages of this kind are also called “crazy-making,” “gaslighting,” or “brainwashing” because they bring about confusion and conflict in the recipient. They may lead the child, for example, to not trust or believe in his own perceptions and mental judgments. Contradictory messages may lead to the development of what the English psychoanalyst Dr. D. W. Winnicott called a false self based on compliance.23 Double-bind (contradictory) communications often have long-term pathological effects on the personality development of the child. This is why beatings done as a kind of punishment and accompanied by double-bind messages (such as those mentioned above) may have more adverse and serious psychopathological effects than a simple beating done out of anger. It is the supposedly moral lessons and double-bind messages given to the child or adult being punished that add insult and mental confusion to injury.

23 Donald W. Winnicott, “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self,” (1960), pp. 140– 152. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press, 1965.

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First, the child is humiliated by the painful beating. Then, to make matters worse, he must endure the parents’ crazy-making, double-bind communications about how the punishment is being inflicted to make him a better person. At some level he probably senses and feels the wrongness of such contradictory messages, even though he may be too young to fully understand the contradictions, the hypocrisy, and the untruths contained in his parents’ double-bind messages. The contradictions between parents’ punitive actions and what they say about them may and often do contribute to the trauma. A child, for example, may internalize the parents’ statements and consciously comply with their claims that the punishment was done for his or her own good. The child may even try to believe that he is being whipped because this is an expression of the parents’ love and use this false belief to suppress his own anger, shame, and distrust of his parents. In short, contradictory (or double-bind) communications at the time of corporal punishment frequently create a confusion in the child’s mind and, if repeated often enough, may cause significant psychopathology in later life.24 Some victims of childhood beatings become believers in the myth of redemptive violence. This is the myth that maintains that violence is justified when good people punish bad people. (For more on this myth see Chapter 12.) Those who identify with the bad-guy role often become weighed down with an excess of shame, guilt, and depression. Such a person was Martin Luther, who throughout his life suffered from depressive episodes and an excessively self-punitive superego (conscience). The latter was in part engendered in him by the frequent, severe beatings he sustained from his sadistic father. When in middle age Luther became the spiritual leader of the Reformation in Central Europe, he displaced some of the unconscious hatred he had for his punitive father onto the Pope, whom he called the Antichrist. Although moral education does not, in my opinion, justify the punishment of either children or adults, I believe moral education can be and often is a valuable and effective aspect of the nonviolent discipline of both children and adults. Moral education can and should be either an implicit or explicit part of any nonviolent, nonpunitive program for the discipline and management of most children and adult offenders. In the moral education of both children and adults, actions speak louder than words. The cold and impersonal way most guards relate to prisoners surely impairs any efforts toward providing them with moral education. The parent, guard, or other authority in charge of dealing with the misbehaving child or adult 24 Miller, For Your Own Good.

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offender is far more likely to get through to the offender with his moral message if he maintains a respectful, compassionate attitude rather than a punitive, contemptuous stance. Learning and internalizing moral lessons is a vital aspect of Restorative Justice approaches. For example, in the Truth and Reconciliation meetings in South Africa, the offender is supposed to make an honest and complete confession of his or her wrongdoing before he is forgiven, before he is enjoined or ordered to make amends to the victims for his crimes against them, and before he is granted amnesty. For other examples of nonpunitive and nonviolent approaches to criminal justice and the Restorative Justice movement, see Chapters 20, 21, and 22 of this book.

REHABILITATION The foregoing discussion about the incompatibility between moral education and punishment also applies to the relationship between rehabilitation and punishment. It is not possible for the person or group inflicting punishment on an offender to at the same time rehabilitate or educate the offender. George Bernard Shaw asserted that one object of imprisonment, reform, was irreconcilable with another object of imprisonment, retribution.25 He wrote, “if you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him, you must improve him and men are not improved by injuries.”26 The broad category of rehabilitation includes a variety of supposedly beneficial and constructive ends served by punishment. This category includes what others have called correction, reformation, moral education, and the like. These or similar terms are used to describe the allegedly curative or reformative effects of punishment on either children or adults. The evidence presented in this book does not support claims regarding the beneficial and educative effects of punishment. The overwhelming evidence actually supports the opposite conclusion: namely, that punishment of either children or adults is psychologically destructive, not constructive. Very few, if any, prison inmates are rehabilitated. Professor Robert Blecker concludes, “Lorton Central [Prison] rehabilitates very few — by most inmate counts less than five percent . . . for the bulk of those rehabilitative programs are only another ‘con.’ ”27 In other words, some inmates fake being reformed when they actually are not, and they do this to win release or for other ulterior purposes. 25 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 118. 26 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 26. 27 Blecker, “Haven or Hell?,” p. 1217.

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According to George Bernard Shaw, the prison system has three official goals: retribution (which Shaw claims is actually vengeance), deterrence, and reformation. Only one goal, vengeance, is achieved, “ . . .and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.”28

FALSE IDEAS CHILDREN

AND

MISCONCEPTIONS

ABOUT THE

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

OF

There are a whole host of false ideas and misconceptions about the corporal punishment of children, and these mistaken notions are often used to justify and to rationalize the physical punishment of children. I am deeply indebted to Dr. M. A. Straus for his discussion of the myths that perpetuate corporal punishment.29 My discussion of what he calls “myths” is similar to his, though I prefer the term false ideas. Just as the various legal theories (retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and the like) have been used to perpetuate the use of incarceration, so have these false ideas been used, both to justify corporal punishment and to deny the great harm corporal punishment has done to children. False Idea 1 — Spanking Is More Effective than Other Types of Discipline Some parents believe that spanking is more effective than other methods of discipline. They confuse the child’s temporary compliance with the notion that the spanking has corrected the misbehavior. Many scientific studies support the conclusion that spanking does not work better.30 False Idea 2 — Spanking Is Required as a Last Resort There is no scientific evidence to support this belief, which grows out of our psychological and cultural commitment to corporal punishment. Most Americans think that spanking is justified to punish a child who has run out into the street, because of the extreme danger. Although spanking in such a situation may provide quick relief to distraught parents, it is neither appropriate nor necessary to treat a child in this way. Spanking a child who has run out into the street is not necessary because it does not work better than other methods, and it is not appropriate because of the long-term harmful effects of spanking. False Idea 3 — Spanking Causes No Harm Many patients who come for psychotherapy or psychoanalysis and who were spanked as children at first deny the damage done to them. Some of them will 28 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 44. 29 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, pp. 149–164. 30 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, pp. 150–152.

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even add that they deserved the spanking or that they needed it. Those patients who stay in therapy or in psychoanalysis for more than a few weeks usually do discover the harmful effects of the beatings they received. Those who deny any anger toward their parents or painful feelings liked with the beatings more often than not recover memories of their disturbing emotions linked with the spanking (e.g., shame, helplessness, anger, and the like). Why do so many people who are victims of corporal punishment deny its harmfulness? One reason is the collective denial among Americans about the harmful effects of corporal punishment as well as other forms of punishment. See Chapter 14 for a discussion of collective denial. Dr. Straus provides several other cogent reasons why many people do not admit that corporal punishment is harmful. One reason the damaging effects of corporal punishment are ignored is that many people are reluctant to admit that their own parents did something wrong, and even more reluctant to admit that they themselves have been doing something harmful to their own children.31 Another reason why so many people do not understand the harmfulness of spanking is because it is difficult to see the harm. Most of the damaging effects do not become visible right away; often it takes months or years for these effects to appear.32 False Idea 4 — Only One or Two Spankings Won’t Be Harmful The fact that the greatest risk of harmful effects occurs when spanking is very frequent does not rule out the possibility that spanking just once or twice is harmful. Scientific studies show that for adults reporting even one or two instances of corporal punishment, it is linked with a higher probability of later physically abusing their own children, slightly more depressive symptoms, and a greater probability of being violent later in life.33 False Idea 5 — Parents Can’t Stop Spanking without Training According to Dr. Straus, there is no evidence that it takes extraordinary training to stop spanking. The best first step needed to eliminate corporal punishment is for educators, physicians, pediatricians, and mental health professionals to consistently state, simply and unambiguously, that hitting a child is wrong, and that no child should be hit by a parent, teacher, or caretaker, regardless of the circumstances.34 This is not to say that parent-education programs are un31 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 153. 32 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 164. 33 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 155. 34 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 156.

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desirable or unnecessary, just that the existence of such programs should not be a precondition for ending corporal punishment. False Idea 6 — Children Who Are Not Spanked Become Spoiled or Run Wild Scientific research shows the opposite to be the truth. A classic study of American parenting found two actions by parents that are linked to high levels of aggression by the child. The first involves permissiveness of the child’s aggression, such as ignoring it when the child hits the parents or another child. Secondly, they found spanking tended to escalate the child’s aggressiveness. The least destructively aggressive children were the children of parents who clearly condemned acts of aggression and who, by not spanking, behaved in a way that demonstrated the principle that hitting is wrong.35 Why, on the average, are the children of parents who do not spank better behaved than children of parents who spank? First non-spanking parents tend to do more explaining and reasoning with the child about ways of controlling and regulating the child’s emotions and behavior. This teaches the child how to use these tools to monitor his or her own behavior and regulate his emotions. Children who are spanked get less training in affect regulation and in thinking through problems. Secondly, non-spanking parents treat the child in respectful ways that assist the child in developing a strong attachment (bond) to them. When there is a strong and caring attachment, children identify with the parent and avoid doing things the parent says are wrong. In part because of this loving attachment to the parent(s), the child develops a conscience, an internalized moral regulation system. Over time the child learns to regulate his emotions and his behavior without the parents’ presence or directions. The third reason that children of parents who do not spank are better behaved is because they tend to develop a more mature conscience, by which they regulate their behavior on the basis of what is right and what is wrong. In contrast, the children of parents who do spank their children tend to develop an immature and primitive conscience based on a fear of punishment rather than an understanding of what is right and what is wrong. False Idea 7 — Parents Spank Rarely or Only for Serious Misbehavior Contrary to this misconception, parents who spank tend to do so often and for almost any misbehavior. Often they do not give the child any warning. At any supermarket or mall, one can see many examples of children doing something wrong, such as taking a candy bar off the shelf. Often the parent will slap the 35 Sears, Maccoby, and Levin, Patterns of Child Rearing.

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child’s hand, snatch the candy bar away from the child, and put it back on the shelf. The high frequency of spanking also shows up in research on spanking.36 In one study of mothers of three- to-five-year-old children, almost two-thirds of the mothers hit their children during the week of the interview, and they did it more than three times in that one week.37 My impression, from a review of the relevant literature, is that Straus is correct in saying, “daily spanking is not at all uncommon.”38 False Idea 8 — Parents Stop Spanking When the Child Becomes an Adolescent This is not true; many investigations have shown that many parents use corporal punishment on teenagers even as old as age seventeen. It is true, however, that the frequency of corporal punishment is less for adolescents than children, “but even at age 17, one of five parents is still hitting.”39 False Idea 9 — Parents Who Don’t Spank Verbally Abuse Their Children This is false because the scientific evidence demonstrates that parents who use little or no spanking also engage in the least verbal aggression. Any campaign against spanking should also stress the importance of avoiding verbal as well as physical attacks, and also emphasize the importance of using other nonviolent methods of discipline. For a discussion verbal abuse (emotional violence), see Chapter 14. False Idea 10 — It Is Unrealistic to Expect Parents to Stop Spanking Actually it is realistic to expect parents to not hit their children if they learn it is harmful and against the law. This is what happened to many groups, even whole nations, in the twentieth century when laws against corporal punishment were enacted. After Sweden adopted a law against corporal punishment in 1966, nearly all Swedish parents stopped spanking their children.40 When it became illegal to beat enlisted men in the military forces, beatings almost disappeared. Frequent beatings were the norm in prisons until about one hundred years ago when laws were enacted forbidding corporal punishment. The laws against corporal punishment in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth cen36 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 160. 37 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 160. 38 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 160. 39 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 161. Straus minimizes or ignores the role of shame inculcation in the victims of corporal punishment. This is one of the few criticisms I have of his otherwise excellent contribution. Hitting either the behind or the face, in addition to causing physical pain, almost always inculcates shame. With adolescents there is less spanking on the behind and more slapping of the face. 40 Straus, Beating the Devil Out of Them, p. 161.

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tury have greatly reduced the prevalence of corporal punishment, except for the corporal punishment of children. Why do Americans permit the physical punishment of children at the same time that the corporal punishment of everyone else in the US has become illegal? If enough people learn that spanking tends to do long-term psychological and emotional damage to their children, I believe popular support will develop to eliminate corporal punishment in all areas, including homes and schools. False Idea 11 — Jesus Christ Wants His Followers to Spank Their Children When They Misbehave This false idea is held by some, but not all, Christians. See Chapter 12 for some observations on the relationships between punishment and religion. Many fundamentalists believe they are carrying out the will of God when they spank their children. This starkly inconsistent and incompatible with the nonviolent, nonjudgmental, and forgiving message of Jesus Christ, as well as other spiritual leaders whose views are identified with the nonviolent movement.

SUMMARY It is clear that the theories advanced to justify the punishment of adults by incarceration and the punishment of children by corporal punishment are not valid. Punishment is harmful to human beings and should be abolished. Punishment does not work!

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CHAPTER 11. DOES INCARCERATION DETER COMMITTING FURTHER CRIMES?

THE

OFFENDER

FROM

This chapter will review and discuss the scientific literature on the alleged deterrent effects of punishment and other criminal sanctions on the offender.

THEORIES OF DETERRENCE Deterrence theory holds that punishment is justified by its future beneficial consequences. According to Specific Deterrence theory, punishing offenders deters them from future criminal activity or at least deters them from committing the same crime again. According to General Deterrence theory, punishment of an offender deters others from committing the same crime as the one committed by the punished offender. Many philosophers, jurists, attorneys, and others believe punishment of criminals is morally justified because they believe (mistakenly in my opinion) that punishment deters criminals from committing more crimes. Specific deterrence is only one of several theories used to justify punishment; the other theories are covered in Chapter 10. I am singling out this topic here for a special, more lengthy discussion because I believe it is the only theory concerned with justifying punishment that has much merit. Many criminologists also view it as having more importance than the other reasons some individuals give for justifying punishment. Professor of law Norval Morris wrote that every criminal law system in the world (except Greenland) has deterrence as its “primary and essential postulate.”1 1 Norval Morris. “Impediments to Penal Reform.” University of Chicago Law Review 33:627–649, 1966, p. 631.

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Deterrence, which ought to be the real object of the courts, has much more to be said for it, because its goal is not so much to hurt (potential) miscreants, per se, but to prevent future misconduct. Yet George Bernard Shaw has written that the “proper name of deterrence” is terrorism.2 As indicated in the Introduction of this book, I do not oppose the use of most criminal sanctions, including fines, penalties, work release, restitution, parole, probation, community service, and the like. The punishment of incarceration is generally applied to offenders who have committed moderate to severe crimes, and the other criminal sanctions (e.g., fines, penalties, and the like) are reserved for offenders who have committed less-serious crimes. Scientific investigations into the deterrent effect of milder forms of criminal sanctions, such as fines and penalties, have been carried out. But controlled scientific experiments on deterrence have not been conducted to show the effects of incarceration lasting more than a few days, and later in this chapter I will explain why no such experiments have been done. Research shows great diversity in the effects of criminal sanctions. Legal sanctions either reduce, increase, or have no effect on the commission of future crimes, depending on a host of variables including the type of offender, the nature of the offense, and the social setting.3 The eminent criminologist Dr. Laurence Sherman wrote, “Similar criminal sanctions have opposite or different effects in different social settings, on different kinds of offenders and offenses, at different levels of analysis.”4 There are some group differences in sanctioning effects. Sanctions cause more crime among social out-groups (e.g., minorities) and less crime among social ingroups. Juvenile correctional treatment increases crime among some personality types and reduces it among others. Recidivism rates were significantly higher in a juvenile power-oriented group than a guilt-ridden neurotic group of juveniles. Criminal sanctions decrease crime among employed men and increase it among unemployed men. Criminal sanctions deter older people more effectively than younger people.5 One study in the Netherlands included increased ticket inspections done on a surprise basis on open-access public transit. Young fare-dodgers were little influenced by the program of surprise inspections, but the older fare-dodgers 2 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 29. 3 Laurence W. Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal Sanction.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30:445–473, 1993, p. 445. 4 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 449. Professor Sherman uses the term “sanctions” to include various types of punishment including incarceration as well as what I have called fines and penalties. 5 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” pp. 450–452.

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Chapter 11. Does Incarceration Deter the Offender from Committing Further Crimes?

were heavily influenced to desist from fare dodging. These results are consistent with other findings that criminal sanctions are more effective with in-groups than out-groups.6 Dr. L. M. Rio studied the effects of legal sanctions on prostitution, and found that such sanctions did not deter prostitutes. Rio concludes that his studies also demonstrate the advantages provided by a system of decriminalized or legalized prostitution.7 According to Professor Sherman, to ask “Does punishment deter crime?” is to ask the wrong question. A more useful question is, “Under what conditions does each type of criminal sanction reduce, increase, or have no effect on future crimes?”8 He cites many studies of both juvenile (mainly adolescent) offenders and adult offenders; these show that criminal sanctions tend to provoke future violations of the law, as well as other studies that show the opposite (where sanctions bring about a decrease in criminal activity). Sherman presents robust evidence from carefully controlled experimental studies demonstrating that under certain conditions punishment can bring about increased criminal activity. He accounts for this with his theory of defiance. In Professor Sherman’s definition, “Defiance is the net increase in the prevalence, incidence, or seriousness of future offending against a sanctioning community caused by a proud, shameless reaction to the administration of a criminal sanction.”9 Sherman highlights four key concepts in the emotional response to sanctioning experiences: legitimacy, social bonds, shame, and pride. Foremost is the amount of legitimacy the sanctioned offender ascribes to the sanctioning agent’s behavior. The most decisive aspect of legitimacy is the sanctioning agent’s behavior toward the offender. When the sanctioning agent is unfair or disrespectful, he loses some legitimacy for the offender. Individuals are more likely to obey the law when they believe it is administered fairly rather than when they believe they have been treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. Second is the strength of the social bond the offender has with the sanctioning agent and other close interpersonal and social attachments. For example, those offenders who are socially isolated and alienated from their families and from the community are considered to have weak social bonds. “Third is the shame the offender either acknowledges or bypasses, respectively repairing or weakening social bonds to

6 Henk van Andel, “Crime Prevention that Works: The Case of Public Transport in the Netherlands.” British Journal of Criminology 29:47–56, 1989. 7 L. M. Rio, “Psychological and Sociological Research and the Decriminalization or Legalization of Prostitution. Archives of Sexual Behavior 20:205–218, 1991. 8 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 445. 9 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 459.

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agent or community.”10 The fourth has to do with the source of the pride the offender feels after the sanction has been imposed. Does the offender feel pride in his social solidarity with the relevant sanctioning community, or is his pride generated by defiant isolation from the community responsible for his punishment? What follows is a summary of the way Sherman explains the diversity of sanctioning effects.11 1. Sanctions produce future defiance of the law (more serious or frequent violations) to the extent that offenders experience sanctioning conduct as illegitimate, that offenders have tenuous bonds to the sanctioning community, and that offenders deny their shame and become proud of their isolation from the sanctioning community.12 2. Sanctions produce future deterrence of lawbreaking to the extent that offenders view the sanctions as legitimate, that offenders have strong bonds to the community and the sanctioning agent, and that offenders accept their shame and remain proud of their solidarity with the community. 3. Sanctions are irrelevant to future lawbreaking when they have no effect because the factors fostering defiance or deterrence are fairly evenly counterbalanced.13 Dr. Sherman’s theory of defiance helps us understand why the severe punishments associated with incarceration tend to bring about a defiant rather than a deterrent response.

THE DEFIANCE RESPONSE — THE ROLE OF THE PROCESSES OF CRIMINALIZATION, PRISONIZATION, AND THE FORMATION OF A NEGATIVE IDENTITY AND/OR NEGATIVE GROUP IDENTITY Defiance theory is consistent with and congruent with the explanatory theories I presented in Chapter 7 concerning the psychosocial processes of prisonization, criminalization, and the formation of a negative identity and a negative group identity. The formation of a negative identity and a negative group identity by prisoners implies “weak bonds” with the sanctioning community. From the time they enter the prison until they leave, all prisoners undergo a process of prisonization and criminalization, and these processes impede rehabilitation because they bring about the rejection of conventional values and norms.14 Prisoners in US prisons learn to reject and hate society’s laws and the authorities 10 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 448. 11 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 460. 12 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 448. 13 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” pp. 448–449. 14 Welsch. “Prisonization,” pp. 357–362. In McShane and Williams, Encyclopedia of American Prisons, p. 359.

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responsible for enforcing the laws. The harsh conditions in US prisons, the animosity between guards and prisoners, the suppressed shame of prison rape, the rampant racism, and the many deprivations of prison life acting together produce in most prisoners the four conditions for the defiance response. My conclusion that a majority of prisoners develop a defiant attitude is supported by the report of David Indermaur’s finding that ninety percent of offenders believe that sentences of the criminal courts are unfair.15 The first condition for the defiance response concerns those offenders who do not experience the punishment as legitimate. This takes different forms — some reject the specific punishment they have received as unfair. Others reject the laws of society entirely and no longer believe in them. Sherman wrote, “People obey the law more when they believe it is administered fairly than when they don’t.”16 He holds that the most powerful evidence for the effect of felt legitimacy derives from a study of compliance with thirty-one nursing home standards in 341 nursing homes before and after visits by governmental inspectors. Compliance levels declined from the first to second inspections for inspectors who bluntly expressed disapproval of noncompliance to nursing home directors. Compliance levels rose from the first to second inspections for inspectors who expressed approval or disapproval in a respectful manner. Thus respectfulness led to compliance with standards and disrespectfulness tended to provoke more defiance of the standards.17 The second condition for the defiant response is an impairment or loosening of the inmates’ bond with the community. Prior to their incarceration, many inmates are already somewhat alienated from their communities because of their poverty, their race, or their unemployed status. This is especially true of those who have what the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson described as a negative identity and/or a negative group identity.18 The psychosocial processes of prisonization and criminalization, as described in Chapter 7, that occur during incarceration further widen the gulf between the offender and his roots in the community and decrease the strength of the bonds 15 David Indermaur, “Offenders’ Perceptions of Sentencing.” Australian Psychologist 29(2):140– 144, 1994, p. 142. 16 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 452. 17 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 452. Sherman obtained his information about the nursing home inspection research from Toni Makkai and John Braithwaite, “Reintegrative Shaming and Compliance with Regulatory Standards.” Research School of Social Sciences, [Canberra]: Australian National University, unpublished manuscript, 1993. 18 Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle, p. 131.

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he has with the community. The prisoner gradually identifies more and more with the other prisoners, forms a criminal identity, and separates himself from the community from whence he came before his incarceration. The third condition for the formation of defiance is that the offender defines the sanction as stigmatizing and rejecting of him as a person. There are multiple interactions with various individuals and groups linked with the criminal justice system that make the prisoner feel rejected and stigmatized, including his relations with the police, his trial, and his incarceration. Chapter 7 highlighted how the impersonal (Type C) communication of prison guards also tends to evoke feelings of shame and rejection, and Chapter 6 discussed the related process of scapegoating of prisoners and how this engenders more shame. Prisoners often feel they have been stigmatized, rejected, treated unfairly, humiliated, and treated with cold indifference, and they feel this way mainly because indeed they have been stigmatized, rejected, treated unfairly, humiliated, and treated with cold indifference by guards and others working for the criminal justice system. The stressful and often traumatizing conditions of daily life in US prisons, coupled with the prisoners’ relationships with other prisoners, foster the fourth condition: “The offender denies or refuses to acknowledge the shame the sanction has actually caused him to suffer.”19 The harsh prison culture, the toxic social environment, and the hypermasculine macho code of prisoners repeatedly evokes shame in prisoners and at the same time tacitly discourages inmates from acknowledging their shame or speaking about it. The hatred many prisoners have for guards and for the community that sent them to prison also reinforces the rage and defiance prisoners use to defend against feelings of shame over their crimes. Although the conditions required for a sanction to be effective and deterrent are rarely met for prisoners who have been incarcerated for more than a few days, they do apply to many (but not all) offenders who commit less-serious crimes (e.g., misdemeanors) and who are placed on probation, fined, or penalized in some way but who are not incarcerated longer than a few days. As I wrote earlier, controlled scientific experiments have not been conducted to determine the deterrent effects of the punishment of incarceration on prisoners. Now my aim is to explain why this is so.

19 Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” p. 460.

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EFFECTS OF INCARCERATION Assume we wanted to set up an experiment to study the effects of one or more years’ incarceration on later criminality in a sample of 200 convicts who have been in prison for at least one year. In order to determine the effects of incarceration we would need a matched control group of felons who had committed the same type of crime and who were not incarcerated. Then after the incarcerated group had been released for a year or so we could compare the number of crimes they had committed with the number of crimes committed in the same period of time by the control group. For obvious ethical reasons such as concern for the public safety, we should not proceed with such an experiment. Conducting such an experiment would risk harm to the public from the control group of criminals who were not incarcerated. The experiments discussed earlier in this chapter on the effects of criminal sanctions conducted by Dr. Laurence Sherman and others were carried out on offenders who had committed less-serious crimes. Some were either not incarcerated at all, while others were incarcerated for only a few days. In these experiments it was possible to create a matched control group to compare with the group subjected to criminal sanctions.20 The French philosopher Michel Foucault argues that incarceration does not deter criminals from committing further criminal acts. Of all inmates released from prison, typically two-thirds re-offend.21 The noted criminologist Michael Tonry writes, “Prison does not work in the sense that most people released from prison do not manage thereafter to conduct law-abiding lives and to refrain from the kinds of unlawful behavior that lead to apprehension, conviction, and imprisonment.”22 A high proportion of inmates have multiple incarcerations.23 The prison psychiatrist Dr. James Gilligan agrees with my notion that punishment does not prevent or inhibit further violence. He writes, “But punishment per se — the gratuitous infliction of pain or deprivation above and beyond whatever is unavoidably inherent in the act of the restraining the violent — does not prevent or inhibit further violence. It only stimulates it.”24 The New Zealand theologian Christopher D. Marshall asserts, “Far from deterring crime, prison 20Sherman, “Defiance, Deterrence, and Irrelevance,” pp. 445–470.. 21 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 171. Recidivism rates most probably underestimate the number of offenders who, following release from prison, continue committing crimes, because the recidivism figures do not include all those former prisoners who continue a life of crime but are not caught. Because most crime goes undetected, unreported, and unpunished, it seems probable that many criminals released from prison are able to continue their criminal career and avoid being arrested. 22 Tonry, Thinking About Crime, p. 187. 23 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 265. 24 Gilligan, Violence, p. 150.

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fosters the corrupt and violent behavior it purports to control, then returns it to the street when prisoners are released. A vicious cycle is set up in which crime demands punishment, punishment entrenches crime, and continuing crime demands yet more and more punishment.”25 Clarence Darrow effectively argues against the deterrence theory and concludes, “The excuse of prevention [deterrence] of crime is really known to be humbug and hypocrisy, . . . the real motive that causes the punishment of crime is malice and hatred and nothing else.”26 The psychoanalyst Karl Menninger wrote, “The deterrence theory is used widely as a cloak for vengeance.”27

LOSS OF FREEDOM AND DEFIANCE Another cause for the formation of the defiant response among individuals who are incarcerated is their deep anger over their loss of freedom and autonomy. For prisoners, this stems from their being locked up, in addition to the many ways in which they are dominated and shamed by guards and other prison authorities. The prisoners’ angry and defiant response to their loss of freedom should be added to the list of conditions that vitiate the deterrent effects of punishment. There is one qualification to what I have written about the effects of punishment on children and adults. Punishment (e.g., spanking) temporarily inhibits the offender from committing the same offense in the presence of the one who punishes the offender. This inhibition of prohibited behavior is short-lived. Increased antisocial or even criminal behaviors are far more often seen as the longterm effects of punishment of both children and adults. Studies by behavioral psychologists on human subjects demonstrate that punishment has little effect in eliminating antisocial behavior. Several behaviorist psychologists find that the inhibiting effects of punishment are only temporary. The psychologist Robert Lundin wrote, “Our correctional programs which are based almost exclusively on a system of punishment have not been notably successful in suppressing criminality or other deviant behavior. Rather, to judge from recurring criminal offenses, the punishment serves only to develop a more alert and adroit criminal, not a law abiding criminal.”28 Professor Sherman has probably done more controlled research on the effects of punishment and other sanctions than anyone else, and he asserts, “The 25 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 107. Italics are mine. 26 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, pp. 75–76. 27 Menninger. The Crime of Punishment, p. 221. 28 Robert Lundin, “Personality Theory in Behaviorist Psychology,” pp. 257–290. In Joseph M. Wepman and Ralph W. Heine, eds., Concepts of Personality, p. 274. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1963.

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long-standing jurisprudential premise that punishment always deters, or at least never backfires, can no longer be accepted.”29 Just after Sherman presents convincing scientific evidence in well-controlled experiments that punishment can escalate violence, he comments: “How punishment can be justified when it escalates violence is not at all clear.”30 Sherman shrinks from the answer to his question when he says it “is not at all clear.” Actually it is stunningly clear. Punishment (incarceration) cannot be justified because it does not deter. Lord Arthur Goodheart once observed that if punishment “cannot deter, then we might as well as scrap the whole of our criminal law.”31 Lord Goodheart was right! Because the punishment of incarceration inflicted by the criminal justice system fails to deter further criminal activity and also because incarceration often increases criminality, we should, as Goodheart suggests, abolish those laws concerning the punishment of offenders by incarceration. Note that I am not opposing nonviolent types of criminal sanctions, such as community service, fines, penalties, probation, and the like. Nor am I advocating abolishing the use of incarceration for the protection of the public as, for example, locking up those criminals (e.g., serial rapists and murderers) who pose a clear and present danger to others. Our present system of punishment of offenders by incarceration is not working — it is only making it worse for the prisoners and for the general public. We need to develop more humane and effective methods for preventing crime, for rehabilitating offenders, and for protecting the public. Effective nonviolent and nonpunitive methods for accomplishing the goals of rehabilitation and prevention, and which include the protection of the public, are discussed in the chapters on Restorative Justice.

CONCLUSIONS Research shows much diversity in the effects of criminal sanctions. Legal sanctions reduce, increase, or have no effect on the commission of future crimes, depending on a host of variables. We have reviewed both the defiant and the deterrent responses to criminal sanctions and the conditions required for these different responses to sanctions. In this chapter and elsewhere in this book, we have shown how the punishments associated with incarceration produce the 29 Laurence W. Sherman, Janell D. Schmidt, Dennis P. Razan, et al. “The Variable Effects of Arrest on Criminal Careers: The Milwaukee Experiment.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 83:137–169, 1992, p. 139. 30 Sherman, Schmidt, Razan, et al., “The Variable Effects of Arrest,” p. 169. 31 Unfortunately I lost the citation and cannot find where Sir Goodheart made the remarks I quoted

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conditions required for the defiant response. The inhumane and abusive conditions prevailing in our prisons are not conducive to the formation of the deterrent response to punishment.

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CHAPTER 12. NOTES ON RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGION, NONVIOLENCE, AND PUNISHMENT When I write about the nonviolent movement, I am not referring to a discrete, organized group. There has been no single organization behind the diverse groups that have sprung up in many different parts of the world in the last several centuries who have used nonviolent methods to attain their goals.1 Many of these groups are informed and inspired by the teachings of the world’s great philosophers, religious and spiritual leaders, both past and present, from Jesus and Buddha to Confucius and Socrates, who have opposed war, conquest, violence, and hatred, and who have taught the values of peace, of forgiveness, and of nonviolent resistance to oppressors.2 Both the black and white people in the United States who supported the nonviolent movement for the civil rights of the black people in the 1960s and ’70s were told to “Remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Love and nonviolence is the way.”3 This philosophy played a pivotal role in the painfully long but ultimately successful nonviolent movement against apartheid. The corporal punishment of children, the punishment of adults by incarceration, and the death penalty are destructive forms of violence. The only kind of incarceration that is morally justified is one done to protect the public from criminals who present a clear and present danger of bodily harm to others. 1 Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. 2 Darrow, Resist not Evil, p. 12. 3 Ackerman and DuVall, A Force More Powerful, p. 321.

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Early Christians followed the nonviolent ethic and refused to engage in war or other forms of violence. For three centuries, according to Professor Walter Wink, no Christians approved of or participated in warfare.4 However, after the Emperor Constantine became a Christian in the fourth century, the Christian church began receiving preferential treatment from the same empire it had once so steadfastly opposed. “Christianity’s weaponless victory over the Roman Empire resulted in the weaponless victory of the empire over the gospel. A fundamental transformation occurred when the church ceased being persecuted and became instead a persecutor.”5 Since then, most Christians have supported state-sponsored violence, especially in the form of war, and they have ignored or denied that nonviolence is at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus. Furthermore, many Christian churches have never agreed that the domination of some people by others is wrong.6 The French philosopher Albert Camus says this about the nonviolent stance taken by the early Christians regarding the death penalty: The unbeliever cannot keep from thinking that men who have set at the center of their faith the staggering victim of a judicial error ought at least to hesitate before committing legal murder. Believers might also be reminded that Emperor Constantine, before his conversion, did not want to give official offices to Christians because they systematically refused to pronounce death sentences or to have anything to do with them. For centuries Christians therefore believed that the strict moral teaching of their master forbade killing.7

Scientific investigations demonstrate that fundamentalist Protestants in this country tend to be more punitive than other groups. For example, research done by Grasmick, Bursik, and Kimpel, among others, demonstrates that Protestant fundamentalism is closely linked to a favorable attitude toward the use of corporal punishment in the home and in the school.8 Also, fundamentalists are more likely to advocate a retributivist, eye-for-an-eye doctrine of punishment in the criminal justice system. Grasmick and his associates summarize evidence that indicates that fundamentalists are also more punitive than non-fundamentalists in other ways than those just listed. Fundamentalist leaders such as the Reverend Greg Dixon, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, and the Reverend Pat Robertson are champions of the warrior mentality and of peace through strength; applying creative nonviolence to political situa4 Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. New York: Doubleday, 1999, p. 129. 5 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 129. 6 Wink, The Powers That Be, pp. 135–136. 7 Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, p. 224 8 Harold G. Grasmick, Robert J. Bursik, and M’Lou Kimpel, “Protestant Fundamentalism and Attitudes Toward Punishment of Children.” Violence and Victims 6(4):283–298, 1991.

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Chapter 12. Notes on Relationships Between Religion, Nonviolence, and Punishment

tions is for them indistinguishable from cowardice.9 These fundamentalist leaders follow the myth of redemptive violence, the mistaken assumption that violence is justified when it is used to destroy “evil.” The myth of redemptive violence is discussed later in this chapter. The states that physically punish the most students in schools each year include, in descending order, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Louisiana.10 Similarly, the Southern states of the old Confederacy account for almost eighty-five percent of executions in the US.11 The God worshipped by many Protestant fundamentalists, in contrast to the spirit of Jesus’ message of forgiveness and nonviolence, is a deity of vengeance and eternal punishment. In a cross-society study, Lambert, Triandis, and Wolf found that societies that rely on corporal punishment also tend to have a religious system in which deities are punitive.12 The fundamentalist Protestant and author James Dobson believes that hitting a willfully disobedient child is an act of love and concern, and not abuse. He angrily opposes those who assert that corporal punishment is a type of violence harmful to children.13 In his book The Christian Family, the fundamentalist Protestant Larry Christianson warns parents of God’s “wrath” against them if they do not use spanking as a means of punishing their children.14 Like many other fundamentalists, Christianson rationalizes the pain and shame engendered by corporal punishment as not only good for the children, but also as a means of carrying out God’s will. The historian Dr. Phillip Greven concludes, “If the immense popularity of The Christian Family is any guide, the endless loop of punishments will continue, generation after generation, until such violent assaults and suffering are no longer rationalized and defended.”15 The domination system, with its emphasis on mindless obedience and authoritarian control of its subjects, severely impacts the minds of fundamentalist Christians. Greven writes: “Whether thought of in terms of breaking wills 9 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 162. 10 From “Corporal Punishment Factsheet.” National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools. Westerville, Ohio 43081. 11 Bohm, “Executions in the United States,” p. 200. 12 William. W. Lambert, Leigh Minturn Triandis, and Margery Wolf, “Some Correlates of Beliefs in the Malevolence and Benevolence of Supernatural Beings: A Cross-Society Study.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58(2):162–169, 1959. 13 James C. Dobson, Dare to Discipline. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1970; and James C. Dobson, The Strong-Willed Child. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1988. 14 Larry Christianson, The Christian Family. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1970, p. 91. 15 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 72.

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or shaping them, the obsession with authority, control, and obedience remains paramount. Fundamentalist writers have been preoccupied for centuries with authority and obedience, and the image of authoritarian family government often shapes their arguments in favor of harsh discipline for children.”16

“DEATH IS NO BIG DEAL” In a speech to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended the morality of the death penalty. According to law professor Patricia Williams, Scalia is driven by a wondrously reactionary religious crusade. In his talk, Scalia asserted: “The more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold on post-Christian Europe and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal.”17 Also according to Scalia, the Christianized citizenry are “less likely to regard death as an utterly cataclysmic punishment . . . [and are] also more likely to regard punishment in general as deserved.”18 I know of no evidence supporting Scalia’s preposterous claim that “death is no big deal” for Christians. In the over 300 patients I have seen in intensive psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, I cannot recall anyone, including Christians and non-Christians, for whom death was not a big deal. The mainline Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church (Scalia’s church) in fact oppose the death penalty.

ON “SAVING SOULS” THROUGH PUNISHMENT

THE

EXPLOITATION

OF THE

FEAR

OF

DIVINE

The evocation of an intense fear of punishment in others is a powerful political and advertising tool, one that is also used in brainwashing and indoctrination, as well as in religious revival meetings. In the following narrative about the eighteenth-century evangelist John Wesley and his mother, I emphasize the way she instilled in him an intense, lifelong fear of punishment, and the effect of this on his career as an evangelist in England. Shortly after his own religions conversion, John Wesley hit upon an extremely effective technique for converting others. First, Wesley would evoke high emotional tension in his potential converts. He found it easy to convince large audiences that a failure to achieve salvation would necessarily condemn 16 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 69. 17 Patricia Williams, “Infallible Justice.” The Nation 265:9 (October 7, 2002). Italics are mine. 18 Williams, “Infallible Justice,” p. 9.

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them to hellfire forever and ever. The immediate acceptance of an escape from such a ghastly fate was then very strongly urged on the ground that anybody who left the meeting “unchanged” and who met with a sudden fatal accident before he had accepted this salvation would pass straight into the fiery furnace of hell. This sense of urgency increased the prevailing anxiety which, as suggestibility increased, would inflict the whole group.19 Wesley’s technique had two major emotional appeals. The first was the induction of an intense fear of eternal punishment in hell; the second was his promise of God’s salvation for those who had faith. Under the powerful threat of eternal punishment, many English citizens in Wesley’s era and later anxiously seized on the opportunity of redemption, through fearful declarations of their faith. Wesley achieved his effect through a constant and ruthless appeal to terror, shame, and guilt. Professor Phillip Greven provides the history of John Wesley’s childhood to explain how John’s own deep fear of eternal punishment developed. Both John and his brother, Charles Wesley, from infancy until they became adults, were subject to harsh physical punishment administered mainly by their mother, Susanna Wesley. Greven quotes her as writing: “When John [and Charles] turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod and to cry softly, by which means they escaped an abundance of correction which they might otherwise have had: and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house.”20 For many years, physical punishment was a central theme in the Wesley household, inflicted by a punitive mother who was deeply hostile to her children. The painful punishment and shaming they received from their mother shaped the lives of John and Charles Wesley. Even in their early infancy, she was intent on crushing the wills of her children and brutally forcing them to obey and submit to her. In 1732, Susanna wrote a letter to her son John Wesley, detailing her methods of punishment and child-rearing for his edification and use. Understandably, two hundred and seventy some years later, her letter is still widely quoted and distributed among fundamentalist Protestants in the US to advance their cause of corporal punishment. Susanna Wesley wrote: When a child is corrected it must be conquered, and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadver-

19 William Walters Sargeant, Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing. Cambridge, MA: Malor Books, 1997, p. 88. 20 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 19. Italics are mine.

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Crimes of Punishment tencies may be passed by. . . . I insist on the conquering of the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffective.21

“Subduing” and “conquering” the will of her children required repeated infliction of painful beatings, beginning in the cradle before their first birthday and continuing throughout childhood. For this woman, repeated physical punishment was indispensable in attaining her goals of conquest and domination over the lives and the minds of her children. Susanna claimed she was providing her children with a religious education. But what did she actually teach them? She taught them that it is all right to hit other people, and that one carries out God’s will by instilling fear and guilt in others. She taught her sons that, in their preaching, it was a good thing for them to scare the hell out of their fearful listeners! From his infancy and continuing through childhood, John Wesley was traumatized by his mother’s repeated spankings, from which he developed a lifelong fear of punishment. To defend himself against the awareness of his helplessness and anger, and the fear engendered by the many painful beatings, he unconsciously identified with his mother to become the one who evoked the fear of punishment in others. This response to trauma, common among children who have been subjected to it, was first described by Anna Freud. She observed that children frequently unconsciously identify with others who beat them or in other ways traumatize them. In the psychoanalytic literature, this unconscious mechanism is called “identification with the aggressor.” John Wesley turned his passive experience of trauma into an active experience by evoking the fear of eternal punishment in others. He unconsciously and defensively converted his having been the helpless victim of his mother’s punishment into being the active one who made other people terrified of eternal damnation in hell. In this way he was able to dominate and control his audiences in a manner similar to the way his mother controlled him. When John Wesley succeeded in evoking in others an intense fear of being eternally burned in hell, he was doing to them what had been done to him by his punitive and dominating mother. In his impassioned essay against punishment and the evils of the criminal justice system, the brilliant attorney Clarence Darrow compares threats of punishment in prison with the threats of punishment in hell. “Punishment to terrorize men from violating human order is like the threat of hell to terrorize souls into obedience to the law of God. Both mark primitive society, both are degrad-

21 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 66. Italics are in the original.

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ing and debasing, and can only appeal to the lower instincts of the lower class of men.”22

THE APOCALYPTIC IMPULSE Phillip Greven asks, “Why are so many people enthralled by the imagery and the fantasies of punishment, devastation, destruction and doom set forth in the Book of Revelation?”23 According to Greven, it is no accident that so many fundamentalist and Pentecostal Protestants who are ardent advocates of corporal punishment for children are also intensely apocalyptic. An underlying assumption of those who believe in the apocalyptic prophecies is that God the Father is so consumed by wrath against the sinners of the world that he is about to punish sinners and the world itself in a series of destructive, catastrophic blows. According to Professor Greven, “The painful punishment of children creates the nuclear core of rage, resentment, and aggression that fuels fantasies of the apocalyptic end of the world. This has been true at least from the early seventeenth century to the present. The most common thread connecting apocalyptics generation after generation has been the experience of pain, assault, and physical coercion resulting from harsh corporal punishments in childhood.”24

AMERICA’S MOST POPULAR RELIGION — THE MYTH VIOLENCE

OF

REDEMPTIVE

Another psychosocial explanation for the intense preoccupation and attachment to punishment among fundamentalists and many others in this country is the common belief in the myth of redemptive violence. This widespread myth asserts that good ends justify violent means. According to this very old myth, good people are redeemed by punishing and/or destroying bad people. The myth of redemptive violence is grounded in an irrational (and most commonly an unconscious) strategy that justifies the punishment of offenders. The most popular and influential religion in the United States and some other countries is the myth of redemptive violence. This primitive myth, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.25

22 Darrow, pp. 178–179. 23 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 206. 24 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 206. 25 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 42.

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Punishment and other forms of violence such as war are justified, even commanded, by followers of the myth of redemptive violence because these acts are done in the service of fighting “evil.” “The myth of redemptive violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known. Furthermore its orientation toward evil is one into which virtually all modern children (boys especially) are socialized in the process of maturation.”26 This myth enshrines the false beliefs that violence brings redemption, that war brings peace, and that might makes right. It is one of the oldest, most often repeated stories in the history of the world.27 Professor Walter Wink became aware of this myth while watching children’s cartoons, and then began studying their structure. He “found the same pattern repeated endlessly. An indestructible hero is doggedly opposed to an irreformable and equally indestructible villain.”28 All of the shows he watched (including Spider-Man, The Hulk, the She-Hulk, Ghost Rider, the X-Men, Transformers, the Fantastic Five, Iceman, the Superman Family, Captain America, Roadrunner, and many others) manifested the same mythic structure. The myth of redemptive violence is also encountered in movies, novels, in the media, in sports, in nationalism, in militarism, in foreign policy, in televangelism, in the religious right, and in many other social activities. This myth is celebrated and enacted in Rambo movies, in the Super Bowl, by street gangs, and by those who pursue machismo. Most Americans unwittingly believe and follow the myth of redemptive violence. They do not understand this myth even though it has an extremely powerful and persistent unconscious influence on their lives and the lives of their children. This myth (or religion) is supported and sustained by the mass media (especially television) as well as by our local and national political leaders. What appears so innocent and innocuous in the TV cartoons for children is, in fact, the mythic underpinnings of our violent society. Professor Wink wrote, “No other religious system has even remotely rivaled the myth of redemptive violence in its ability to catechize its young so totally.”29

HOW THE MYTH OF REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE IS INTERNALIZED BY CHILDREN This section examines and summarizes the psychological processes typically occurring in children when they watch movies and television shows, or 26 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 55. The italics are Wink’s. 27 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 42. 28 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 53. 29 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 54.

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read comic books promoting, however unwittingly, the myth of redemptive violence. Children consciously identify with the hero (the “good guy”) so that they can think of themselves as both strong and good. This allows them to disavow their own angry, bad, violent, or rebellious impulses and to unconsciously project them onto the bad guys. Usually the bad guys initially prevail, permitting the child to vicariously enjoy his own aggressive and forbidden impulses through a temporary unconscious identification with the bad guys (the aggressors). In most cartoons or movies, the bad guys prevail for a much longer time than the good guys, who usually only gain the upper hand late in the story. The extensive period during which the bad guys prevail provides a conscience-free time in which the child can secretly identify with and vicariously enjoy the bad guys’ violence and “evil” actions. When the hero (i.e., the good guy) finally triumphs over the bad guy, the child is able to repress his hostile and other forbidden tendencies and reestablish a sense of goodness and strength through renewed identification with the triumphant hero. All of the above, of course, assists the child in avoiding awareness of his or her own aggressive impulses. In the process of observing these good-guysdestroy-bad-guys narratives thousands of times, the child gradually gains a spurious sense of salvation and enhanced self-esteem through his identification with the hero (the good guy) whose major mission in life is to destroy bad guys. The child’s repression of his or her “bad” or aggressive feelings is facilitated by the punishment, banishment, and/or death of the “bad guy.” In this way, the child gradually becomes a believer in the myth of redemptive violence. He begins believing that violence is acceptable, even required, if it is carried out by good guys to punish or defeat bad guys. Violence is sanctified and legitimized when it is used in the service of supposedly “good” causes. Salvation is found through an identification with the hero and the punishment and/or death of the bad guy. Now let us take a closer look at what develops over time in the mind of the child indoctrinated into becoming a believer in the myth of redemptive violence. Through watching many repetitions of today’s movies and TV shows, he forms a split in the ego (or self) in terms of his representations of himself. The badguy aspects of himself are made unconscious through the defenses of denial and repression, and the good-guy (hero) aspects of himself and the heroes he has identified with remain in his conscious mind. The denied bad-guy aspects of himself are unconsciously projected onto his representations of his real or imagined enemies. In addition to the above transformations within himself, the believer in the myth of redemptive violence also undergoes a related pathological change in his attitudes toward other people. In short, he tends to see others as all good or all 163


bad; he views others in a dichotomous, black-or-white way. Note how closely the above description corresponds to the rigid, black-or-white ways fundamentalists tend to think of themselves and others. Most Americans are unaware of how extensively they have been unconsciously indoctrinated into believing in this horrific and primitive myth.

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CHAPTER 13. WHY INCARCERATE WOMEN? The following case study of a woman I will call Betty1 highlights some important but neglected issues linked with the incarceration of women in the United States. Betty was a 39-year-old divorced waitress who called the police at about 12:30 a.m. to help her because she had just been beaten up by her lover. They came to her apartment and noted that there had been a big fight with many pots overturned and furniture and dishes broken. She had a black right eye and bruises on her legs, on her hands, on her forehead, and on other parts of her body. The police found out that there were warrants out for her arrest because of her failure to appear in court for a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol in the past. Because of this warrant, she was admitted to a jail. The guards who admitted her noted that she was intoxicated. She protested that she had just been beaten up and called to get help when, instead of getting help, she was sent to jail. This protest continued throughout the early morning hours on the day of her admission to the jail. The jail officers treated her in a cold, impersonal way and scolded her for yelling. She was left in a cold, unheated cell without blankets. For over an hour the jail officers would not give her a blanket or help her use a telephone to get someone to post bail so that she could leave the jail. She was in a state of great turmoil, at times crying, protesting, and yelling. She spoke of feeling hopeless and helpless. She said, “All of my life someone’s been beating me up and now going to jail is another kind of beating.” Within the first few hours of her incar1 To protect Betty’s survivors, I have not used her true name. “Betty” is a pseudonym for an incarcerated woman I learned about through my part-time practice of forensic psychiatry

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ceration she was moved to a number of different cells. She told a cellmate, Ruth, that she wanted to run and bash her head against the wall and die. She also told one of the arresting officers who brought her to the jail, “Why don’t you just let me run away and then you could shoot me.” She repeatedly complained about the pain and suffering she was receiving from the beating. To her cellmate, Ruth, she said of the police officers, “They don’t care.” At a later deposition, Ruth confirmed Betty’s complaints about the inhumane, cold, and hostile treatment she received from the jail officers. After a long, hour-andforty-five-minute delay, at about 2:15 a.m., a jail officer booked her, took a brief history, and filled out her jail admission forms. He noted a scar on her left wrist and, on questioning, she admitted having attempted suicide by cutting her wrists several years previously. She was placed in a single cell and when the officer who did the booking and admittance forms went to a different part of the jail she hanged herself. She was found hanging at 3 a.m. Efforts to resuscitate her failed. Her daughter confirmed the history of her mother’s alcohol abuse and the fact that she had been a victim of physical abuse from her live-in boyfriend for about ten years. Indeed, on autopsy, many scars, purple bruises, and more recent red ones were found; others were dark and obviously older bruises from previous beatings. The jail officers (a man and a woman) showed callous indifference to Betty’s physical injuries as well as her recent emotional injuries caused by the beatings she received from her boyfriend. The officers were negligent when they wrote on the admission form that she did not have “visible” signs of trauma. Actually, she did have several visible signs of physical trauma, including a black eye, a bruise on the back of her right hand, and fresh contusions on her neck and the outer portion of her right bicep. The coldness and indifference of the guards was also manifested by their ignoring her cries for help, by their long delay in giving her a blanket, by their failure to help her to make phone calls to her relatives, their scolding and shaming her for the noise she made, and finally by speaking of her in her presence and the presence of others as a “female” (and not as a woman, wife, a mother, or the like). One subtle way jails and prisons dehumanize prisoners is by calling the inmates “females” and “males” and thereby emphasizing the concrete physical aspects of their gender while at the same time refraining from using terms such as wife or mother that recognize their social role in society. Betty should not have been taken to the jail. She should have been evaluated and treated in the emergency room of a hospital. Had she been taken to a hospital and received the care she needed for both her acute medical and psychiatric problems, she probably would not have committed suicide. 166

Chapter 13. Why Incarcerate Women?

The impersonal and detached stance of the jail officers was inhumane and neglectful, both in response to her basic human needs for personal care and in withholding professional treatment of her physical and emotional injuries. The inappropriate attitude of the officers significantly contributed to her emotional distress and to her suicide. At a deposition for a lawsuit against the jail brought by those who survived Betty’s death, I testified as an expert witness for the plaintiffs that she should not have been incarcerated. Rather, I argued, the police officers who went to her apartment shortly after midnight should have taken her directly to a hospital for emergency medical and psychiatric evaluation and treatment. Her state of intense intoxication, her multiple bruises, her high suicide risk, her intense emotional distress, her physical injuries, and especially her head injuries were urgent indications for an emergency medical and psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. After the deposition, the plaintiff’s attorney — the attorney who had hired me to serve as an expert witness — scolded me for testifying that the patient should have been taken to a hospital emergency room for both evaluation and treatment rather than put in jail. He said my remark about Betty’s need for evaluation and treatment at a hospital was irrelevant! However, the major psychiatric issues in this case, in my opinion, were the errors made (such as incarcerating Betty rather than obtaining care for her in a hospital), all stemming from defects in the criminal justice system. But because the people working in the system, including the judge and both the defense and plaintiff attorneys, did not want to hear me testify about the faults in the system, I was not able to testify about this crucial subject at the trial. There was no rational reason to lock this woman up in a poorly heated jail cell when she was in dire need of psychiatric and medical diagnosis and treatment. The legal reason for incarcerating her was the earlier warrant for her arrest. Betty had not shown up for a court hearing on a DUI (driving under the influence) charge against her. Yet Betty had not been convicted of any crime and she posed no danger to society. Her premature death was a consequence of the larger failures of the criminal justice system, to a greater degree even than the result of the jail officers’ actions. This is because the criminal justice system’s traditional and single-minded preoccupation with punishment and incarceration tends to make it oblivious of the medical and psychiatric needs of its inmates. I do not fault the jail officers as much as I fault the criminal justice system for the tragic mistakes made in the incarceration and care of Betty. In their cold, detached attitude toward Betty, the jail officers were treating her as they were trained to do. For more about how guards (officers) are trained to relate to inmates in a cold, impersonal way, see Chapter 7. 167


At the trial, I testified against the jail, and on the many ways the jail was negligent in its care of Betty. Even though she had several high-suicide-risk factors and should have been placed in a suicide-watch room after admission, the poorly trained officers ignored the evidence of a high suicide risk and did a grossly inadequate job of evaluation and screening when she was admitted to the jail. The more important suicide-risk factors included the fact that she had a history of a past suicide attempt, her alcoholism and the fact that she was intoxicated at the time of admission, her depression and intense emotional distress, her two communications of suicide intent, and the recent stress of the beating she had received. The proximal causes of Betty’s suicide were the stresses and shame caused first by the severe beating inflicted on her, and secondly by her humiliating and dehumanizing incarceration in a physically and emotionally cold jail. These points have wide application to the subject of women in jails and prisons. Incarcerating women for nonviolent crimes serves no constructive purpose, either for the offenders or for society. The inadequate medical and psychiatric care for women as well as men in all our penal institutions is a gross violation of their human rights.

WOMEN IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS Betty was a victim of the mass-incarceration movement during the last thirty years. Every year, 3.2 million women in the US are arrested by the police, charged with a crime, removed from their families, and taken to a jail to await a trial or other disposition of their case. The number of incarcerated women has risen rapidly, partly because of mandatory drug-related sentencing, doubling the female population in ten years, to 162,000 in the year 2000. In 1979, only one woman in ten was in prison serving time for drugs. In 1989, it was one in three.2 In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the number of women being held in the nation’s prisons increased more than sixfold.3 As a result of this trend to mass imprisonment, the number of women incarcerated in penal institutions in this country is about ten times higher than the number of women incarcerated in all of Western Europe, while by comparison, the population of the US is about the same as the population of Western Europe.4 2 Meda Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women: The Unintended Victims of Mass Imprisonment,” pp. 79–94. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment, pp. 88–89. 3 Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women,” p. 80. 4 Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women,” p. 81.

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Racism is as serious a problem in women’s penal institutions as it is in men’s. About two-thirds of the women incarcerated in jails or prisons are black, Hispanic, or members of other nonwhite ethnic groups. Most of them are poor, and fewer than forty percent have a high school diploma or GED.5 Punitive segregation and solitary confinement cause the same suffering and pain to both genders. The lack of adequate medical and psychiatric care is as true of women’s prisons as it is of men’s prisons. The almost total absence of meaningful education and rehabilitation programs for most women makes it difficult for them to succeed in the outside community after their release.6 Women’s prisons have long been the stepchildren of the criminal justice system, and they are last in line for scarce resources. Typically there have been fewer vocational and educational programs for women, and placements in educational or work-release facilities are few or noncommitted. Women have found that prison education programs train them for extremely low-paying jobs. One of the most significant consequences of mass incarceration for women is the irreparable psychic damage done to them, to their children, and to their families when they are removed from their families and incarcerated. Women are much more likely to suffer when taken away from their children, experiencing an agonizing separation that compounds the intense guilt, depression, low self-esteem, and shame many women experience when imprisoned. About seventy-five percent of women in prison are mothers, and two-thirds have children under the age of sixteen.7 Moreover, incarceration of women prisoners leads to separation from their children for an extended period of time. Most prisons are situated in rural areas at some considerable distance from the urban centers where prisoners’ families live. This distance makes visiting both logistically and economically difficult, if not impossible. It is even more difficult for the families, especially the children of incarcerated mothers, to visit the incarcerated women in jails than in prisons, mainly because many jails prohibit children from visiting their mothers. Professor Beth E. Richie writes, “the combined impact of the rate at which low-income women of color are losing custody of their children and the erosion of citizenship rights resulting from involvement with the criminal justice system has had a devastating impact. This crisis of legitimacy and the serious stigma and shame it causes is one of the most profound aspects of imprisonment today.”8 5 Beth E. Richie. “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration on Women,” pp. 136–149. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment, p. 138. 6 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 113. 7 Richie, “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration,” p. 139. 8 Richie, “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration,” pp. 140–141.

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MEDICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT IN WOMEN’S PRISONS The lack of competent medical and psychiatric care for Betty, as seen earlier in this chapter, is not unusual but in fact typical of our penal institutions. Most jails and prisons also lack adequate obstetrical and gynecological care for women prisoners. Between six and ten percent of all women are pregnant at the time they are incarcerated. Beth Richie asserts that “The serious long-term medical and psychological consequences of neglectful and hostile treatment during pregnancy must be counted as collateral damage associated with mass incarceration.”9 The following case vignette illustrates the deficiencies in medical diagnosis and treatment for women in prisons. After feeling a lump in her breast, Sherrie Chapman, an inmate at the California Institution for Women in Frontera, raised an alarm to the prison doctor assigned to her in 1991, while explaining to him her family history of breast cancer. The physician belittled her complaints. A mammogram was not done until two years later. A follow-up was delayed another two-and-a-half years. Doctors outside the prison ordered an immediate radical right-breast mastectomy and the removal of four lymph nodes.10 Shackled in a hospital holding room, Sherrie curled up on a bench. “I tried to focus, not cry, not feel bad, not hurt — so many emotions running at one time, and nobody there to make you feel better at all,” she said. Correctional officers in the prison ignored her chemotherapy appointments. Sherrie said, “There was a lack of care, concern, compassion, sympathy, anything.”11 The cancer spread, and in 1997 she had a left-breast mastectomy. Dr. Yuri Parisky, director of breast-imaging services at Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Southern California, explained that “Whether [out of] wilfull disregard or [because] they just blew it off, her doctors did not follow rather standard practice.”12 Inmate Sherrie Chapman won a settlement from the state. Writer Cynthia Cooper states, “Effectively protected from public scrutiny, the barbed-wire medical system is uncoordinated, underfunded; and has almost zero accountability. Doctors are ill trained and overburdened, and even competent ones can be trumped by correctional personnel.”13 The conflict between the punitive approach and the medical (and psychiatric) approach toward the care of both women and male prisoners was discussed 9 Richie, “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration,” p. 140. 10 Cynthia Cooper, “A Cancer Grows.” The Nation, May 6, 2002, pp. 30–34. 11 Cooper, “A Cancer Grows,” p. 30. 12 Cooper, “A Cancer Grows,” p. 30. 13 Cooper, “A Cancer Grows,” p. 33.

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by the writer Wil S. Hylton. He noted that “the principles of medicine itself . . . are fundamentally at odds with all other facets of prison life. Even the term ‘prison medicine’ borders on oxymoron: Whereas prisons are designed to alienate and punish, medicine exists to nurture and soothe.”14 Hylton asserts that many prisoners are not receiving needed medical care. He describes the situation in prisons as “a medical system run amok, one that not only ignored sick patients but was actually skirting the limits of the law and, in the process, helping to unleash an epidemic on society.”15 Hylton claims that a large and powerful organization, the HMO Correctional Medical Services (CMS), refuses to take action to prevent an epidemic of hepatitis C. In contrast to its uncommon occurrence in the general population, hepatitis C is widely prevalent in prisons. Hylton believes that the failure to prevent the spread of hepatitis C from this source threatens the general population as well as the prisoners. Most prisons lack adequate psychiatric care for women prisoners, and in this regard the status of facilities for women is as poor as it is for men. See Chapter 4 for a more comprehensive discussion about psychiatric treatment in prisons. Many of the women who are incarcerated have themselves been victims of violence carried out against them. “Pervasive and severe” histories of prior sexual and physical abuse affect ninety-four percent of women in prisons, according to Angela Browne, a senior research scientist at the Harvard Injury Research Center of the Harvard School of Public Health.16 An aggravating and often stressful factor in prisons for women is the presence of male guards. Until the 1960s, male guards were in the minority in most women’s facilities and were not permitted unsupervised contact with inmates. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the proportion of male staff began to rise, and today the ratio of men to women correctional officers in women’s prisons is about two to one.17 Because of the way prisons are constructed, male guards are often in a position to view women in states of undress, on the toilet, or taking a shower. This is a setup for malevolence and sexual harassment on the part of the guards. But even where there is no harassment the lack of privacy often is humiliating and shame-inducing. Clearly this inhumane and indecent situation could and should be rectified by eliminating (or at least sharply reducing) the employment of male guards in women’s prisons.

14 Wil S. Hylton, “Sick on the Inside — Correctional HMOs and the Coming Prison Plague.” Harper’s 307:43-54, 2003, p. 44. 15 Hylton, “Sick on the Inside,” p. 53. 16 Cooper, “A Cancer Grows,” p. 33. 17 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 126.

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DO WOMEN OFFENDERS NEED TO BE IN PRISON? The case study of Betty, presented above, makes it clear that she did not need to be incarcerated. In my opinion, this also holds true for the majority of women in American jails and prisons. Incarceration serves no constructive purpose for these women, nor does it serve any useful purpose for society. My opinion that the majority of women in our prisons do not need to be there is supported by Professor Meda Chesney-Lind, who moreover states that most of the women who work as correctional administrators in prisons themselves believe that the majority of imprisoned women do not need to be incarcerated.18 One reason that most women prisoners should not be in prison is because few women prisoners pose a threat or danger to society. Over eighty percent of women who are incarcerated are in prison for nonviolent crimes. About sixty percent of women’s incarceration is drug-related. More women (sixty percent) than men (forty-one percent) are serving time for property offences. What I have written in other chapters about the need to incarcerate male criminals who pose a danger to society also applies, of course, to women. However, the number of women offenders who pose a danger to society is very small. Justice is not being served by incarcerating women who are in conflict with the law owing to their use of drugs and their poverty. Incarcerating them merely exacerbates their unhappy lives and diverts resources from needed community services.19 Professor Chesney-Lind concludes, “The experiment in women’s corrections was an inadvertent outcome of a misguided notion that ‘getting tough’ on drugs and other crimes would make us safe. Not only has women’s incarceration failed to deliver on that promise, it has created further havoc in families and communities that had already been ravaged by poverty and racism.”20 Incarceration is not only destructive to these women and their families, it is also a costly waste of the taxpayers’ money. We need to stop using tax dollars to incarcerate women for petty drug and property crimes. We should reconsider incarceration as a first-choice response to crime. Taking that path has been the costly, punitive, mean-spirited, and destructive course that most of the rest of the civilized world has critiqued for some time. Professor Chesney-Lind makes a convincing and impassioned plea for decarceration, not only for most of the women in prisons but also for many men imprisoned for nonviolent crimes. She concludes: “the decarceration of women can

18 Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women,” p. 82. 19 Richie, “The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration,” p. 139. 20 Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women,” p. 93.

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begin the much-needed national conversation of how to develop criminal justice policies that heal and treat rather than solely punish.”21 Many of the women who are needlessly incarcerated could be better served, even healed, by the newer, nonpunitive Restorative Justice approaches discussed in Chapters 20 and 22. The cost of these alternatives to incarceration is much less than the punitive criminal justice approaches used today, and the potential benefit to both society and the individuals concerned is clearly much greater.

21 Chesney-Lind, “Imprisoning Women,” p. 94.

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CHAPTER 14. EMOTIONAL ABUSE Although it is seldom talked about, emotional abuse is far more common than either physical or sexual abuse. Depending on both the intensity and the duration of the emotional abuse, it causes mild to serious, and sometimes enduring, psychic damage to its victims. Almost all of the perpetrators of emotional abuse, and some of the victims, are either entirely unaware of this abuse, or are only partially and temporarily conscious of it, either in its direct effect or its destructive effects on others. Some other investigators of emotional (verbal) abuse who have observed that both victimizers and victims are often unaware of the existence and/or of the harmfulness of emotional abuse include Jay Carter, Suzette Haden Elgin, Patricia Evans, and Deborah Tannen.1 Carter found that only one percent of persons are intentionally verbally abusive. He wrote, “Twenty percent do it semiconsciously as a defense mechanism. The rest of us do it only occasionally, usually unconsciously and unintentionally.”2 The conclusions I reached in my clinical studies on the wide prevalence of emotional (verbal) abuse as well as the unawareness on the part of both victimizers and victims are supported by scientific investigations of speech patterns of individuals. In the United States, professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen inves1 Jay Carter, Nasty People. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989; Suzette Haden Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980; Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond. Bob Adams, Inc., Holbrook, MA: Adams Media Corporation, 1992; and Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation. New York: William Morrow, 1990. 2 Carter, Nasty People, p. 9.

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tigated gender differences in communication and concluded that men commit more verbal abuse than women.3 According to her, men live in a hierarchical social order in which they are either one-up or one-down. She states, “In this world conversations are negotiations in which people try to achieve and maintain the upper hand if they can, and protect themselves from others’ attempts to put them down and push them around. Life then is a contest, a struggle to preserve independence and avoid failure.”4 I agree with Professor Elgin’s assertion that there is an epidemic of verbal abuse at every level of American society.5 In my investigations I found that a common and probably universal motive for committing emotional violence is the more-or-less unconscious desire for domination over the victim. Other clinicians and scholars have come to a similar conclusion.6 Patricia Evans wrote, “All verbal abuse is dominating and controlling.”7 Jay Carter, in his book about emotional (verbal) abuse, emphasizes that the major dynamic in verbal abuse is the need to control others; he describes Adolf Hitler as a prime example of someone who was exceptionally abusive and who did so out of an abiding, deep need to dominate other individuals.8 In this book I use the terms “emotional abuse” or “emotional violence” rather than the more commonly used term verbal abuse because what most mental health professionals and others call verbal abuse is nonverbal as much as or more than it is merely verbal. All human vocal communications include both verbal and nonverbal elements. The harmfulness (violence) of many spoken communications is often conveyed as much (or even more intensely) by the nonverbal elements that accompany it, such as tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, and other expressions of emotions, as it is by the actual words used.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION What makes some utterances abusive is not only the spoken words. For English, more than half the information in a communication is not in the words but in the body language, including the intonation of the voice. To recognize verbal abuse, you have to pay attention to the intonation — the melody of the voice — that goes with the words. When one hears such extra stresses and emphases on words, or parts of words, the listener should be on the alert. 3 Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand, pp. 24–25. 4 Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand, p. 25. 5 Suzette Haden Elgin, Success with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989, p. v. 6 Theo. L. Dorpat, Gaslighting: The Double Whammy, Interrogation, and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Analysis. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996, pp. 18–20. 7 Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, p. 13. 8 Carter, Nasty People, p. 15.

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Chapter 14. Emotional Abuse

Dr. Elgin emphasizes the importance of listening to nonverbal communication, and especially to the words that receive extra stress or emphasis.9 The sentence, “Why do you eat so much junk food?” could be considered intrusive, even rude, but it is not a verbal attack. An abusive attack that could go with the same words sounds like this: “WHY do you eat SO MUCH JUNK food?” What Dr. Elgin leaves out in the above account and elsewhere is the tone of voice. It is not just the quality of emphasis that makes for verbal abusiveness, but also the speaker’s emotion. The above example regarding junk food would be especially hurtful and abusive if it were expressed in a contemptuous or an accusatory tone of voice. In the development of verbal abuse in childhood and later, the surrounding culture plays an important role, and according to Professor Elgin this is especially true of men in the US. Elgin writes that one may “take as [a] given that men are brought up to be verbally abusive, usually without conscious awareness of that fact.”10 Both from my reading and my clinical experience, I have gained the consistent and repeated impression that many men have been unwittingly taught to use speech to dominate others. Also, my clinical experience and studies strongly indicate that women, in the past more than now, learned to minimize, ignore, discount, trivialize, and in other ways deny the dominating abuse directed against them. Children learn these speech patterns through the imitation of and identification with others, especially, of course, their parents. In short, many boys learn to speak in a dominating way to women because they see their fathers or other men relate this way to women. Girls follow the example set by their mothers and/or other older women who minimize or in other ways deny the emotional abuse of their fathers and other males toward women.

COVERT AND EXPLICIT EMOTIONAL ABUSE Covert emotional abuse should be distinguished from explicit or gross emotional abuse. The latter includes curses, obscenities, epithets, racial slurs, and threats. Although yelling and screaming are common with explicit abuse, they do not occur with covert verbal abuse. Anger and hatred are openly manifested in the communications of explicit abuse, but are muted or appear to be absent in covert emotional abuse. Both explicit and covert verbal abuse are often linked with the physical abuse of adults and the corporal punishment of children. 9 Elgin, Success With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, p. 104. 10 Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, p. 286.

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The motives most often underlying explicit verbal abuse are hatred and rage, whereas the motives energizing covert verbal abuse are desires to manipulate, to shame, and to punish the victim. The need to dominate the other prevails in both the covert and explicit forms of emotional violence. Covert verbal abuse is far more common, more subtle, more sophisticated, and frequently more damaging than explicit abuse. Most of my commentary on emotional (verbal) abuse will be about covert emotional abuse. I take this approach in part because most people are unaware of its widespread prevalence and its significance. Covert emotional abuse is a common way of communicating in our culture and most people, including — I regret to say — many mental health professionals, are unaware of its existence or its harmfulness. Many people do not realize that they are victims of covert emotional violence because the abuse they are subjected to is not openly and explicitly abusive. Most emotional abusers don’t just loudly hand out insults and curses; instead they use much more subtle and covert attack patterns.11 In her book, Patricia Evans lists the following different types of covert verbal abuse: “withholding,” “countering,” “discounting,” “verbal abuse disguised as jokes,” “blocking and diverting,” “trivializing,” and “undermining.”12 The abusive message in covert emotional abuse is implicit (not explicit) and it is usually delivered without obvious anger and without yelling. The tone of voice of the covert emotional abuser may seem normal, though sometimes one may detect at least a trace of criticism or contempt in the tone of voice. In what follows, I shall discuss two common and specific types of covert emotional abuse, gaslighting and the double whammy.

GASLIGHTING Gaslighting is a complex and harmful manipulative interaction in which the gaslighter tries to cause the victim to doubt his perceptions and judgments at the same that that the gaslighter pressures the victim into accepting the gaslighter’s judgment. Gaslighting can be done consciously or unconsciously and it is one of the most commonly used techniques for dominating, manipulating, even brainwashing other people. The two defining characteristics of gaslighting are: (1) the manipulation is one in which the victimizer attempts to control the feelings, thoughts, or actions of another individual, and (2) the emotional abuse is carried out covertly, and it is not explicitly hostile, abusive, or coercive. 11 Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, p. 26. 12 Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, p. 67.

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The concept of gaslighting was derived from Patrick Hamilton’s play Angel Street, and later from the 1944 movie Gaslight starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. In both the play and the movie the victim’s husband manipulated the gas lighting. When the victim complained that the amount of light from the gaslight had changed, her husband said the amount of light had not changed; he asserted that she had only imagined it had changed. Her complaints made it seem as if she were going insane. The husband’s aim was to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital so that he could gain her property for himself.13 Like the psychoanalysts Victor Calef and Edward Weinshel, I have adapted a broad definition of gaslighting, one that includes not just those who are made psychotic by it, but a wider range of victims.14 The victimizer’s wish to dominate the victim is actualized when he or she is able to manipulate the victim in such a way (as, for example, by shaming him) that the victim begins to doubt his own judgment. After the victim loses confidence in his mental capacities, he becomes an easy prey for the victimizer’s plans to dominate the victim’s cognition, feeling state, and overt behavior. A mild and naive form of gaslighting may be carried out by psychotherapists and others who are unaware that they are gaslighting, and who may also be unaware of the harmful effects of what they are doing. In a previous publication, I gave examples of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts who were gaslighting patients and did not realize it.15 Case Vignette of Gaslighting The clinicians G. Z. Gass and N. W. Nichols have written about the use of gaslighting tactics by men against their wives both during and following the time they were having extramarital affairs.16 For example, Harry had an affair and his wife, Jane, discovered signs of it. When Jane confronted Harry about the affair, he lied to her, stating he was not having an affair. To this Jane responded, “The worst part, Harry, is the lying.” In response, Harry replied, “I’m not lying, you’re just imagining things.” By his vigorous and contemptuous response to his wife, Harry engendered confusion, shame, and anxiety in Jane, causing her to doubt her own perceptions and sanity.

13 Patrick Hamilton. Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts. New York: Samuel French, 1942. 14 Victor Calef and Edward M. Weinshel. “Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 50:40–66, 1981. 15 Dorpat, Gaslighting, pp. 31–47. 16 G. Z. Gass and W. C. Nichols, “Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome.” Contemporary Family Therapy 10:3–16, 1988.

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Gass and Nichols state, “The gaslighting behaviors of the husband provide a recipe for a so-called ‘nervous breakdown’ for some women, [or] for collapse or suicide in some of the worst case situations.”17 My observations on the traumatizing effects of gaslighting are in agreement with the conclusions of Gass and Nichols; gaslighting, especially if it is repetitive, can precipitate a wide range of psychiatric disorders, up to and including psychosis and suicide behavior by the victims.

GASLIGHTING AND INTERPRETATIONS OF DISTORTIONS Psychotherapists who interpret defenses and transferences as distortions of reality have, often unwittingly, been using a gaslighting technique. This occurs when, at the same time, they set themselves up as arbiters of what is real and what is undistorted. They may undermine their patients’ mental capacities and self-esteem by labeling their patients’ perceptions and judgments as distorted and unrealistic. In order to win converts and followers, many groups, including fundamentalist religious groups, cults, encounter groups, and large group-awareness training organizations, make extensive use of gaslighting and other brainwashing techniques.18 The psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature contains articles describing various types of covert emotional abuse that are similar to gaslighting; what follows summarizes a few of these contributions. The American psychoanalyst Dr. Harold Searles discusses a form of enactment that occurs when a struggle is created in which the patient, the analyst, or both, attempt to drive the other person crazy. His article, “The Effort to Drive the Other Person Crazy,” lists six modes commonly used to drive the other individual crazy. All six are, in my opinion, types of gaslighting because they all involve repeated efforts to undermine the other person’s confidence in his emotional reactions and his own perception of reality.19 The English psychoanalyst Dr. R. D. Laing discussed some of the ways in which individuals, in speech or deed, attempt to destroy the life in others. In Laing’s view, this is done through interpersonal communications that tend to confuse or mystify, actions that make it difficult to know “who” he is, “who” the other is, and what is the situation they are “in.”20 17 Gass and Nichols, “Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome,” p. 14. 18 Margaret Thaler Singer, with Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Meaning in Our Everyday Lives. 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 19 Harold Searles, “The Effort to Drive the Other Person Crazy: An Element in the Aetiology and Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia. British Journal of Medical Psychology 32:1–13, 1959. 20 R. D. Laing, Self and Others. New York: Pantheon, 1961.

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Another hidden type of emotional abuse was described by George R. Bach and Herb Goldberg as “crazymaking.” They describe it as “a form of interpersonal interaction that results from the repression of intense aggression and which seriously impairs its victims’ capacity to recognize and deal with the interpersonal reality.”21

THE DOUBLE WHAMMY — A FORM OF COVERT EMOTIONAL VIOLENCE The “double whammy” is an emotionally abusive technique many individuals unconsciously employ to dominate, shame, and punish other people. It is a powerful tactic for dominating others through the inculcation of shame and other painful emotions. In a previous publication I coined the term “double whammy” for this type of emotional (verbal) abuse because it contains two emotionally hurtful and manipulative communications made by the perpetrator. These are separated by one communication (usually a protest) made by the victim in response to the perpetrator’s initial abusive manipulation.22 The first manipulative intervention is one in which the victim is verbally attacked, insulted, or disparaged. Then, after the victim has protested, the perpetrator, in his second aggressive manipulative remark, again emotionally abuses the victim by discrediting and invalidating the judgments made by the victim in his response to the initial verbal attack. The perpetrator’s second intervention is most often a form of gaslighting. In the following example, an older woman speaks disdainfully to her daughter, who has just complained about her economic problems trying to start a new business.

Mother: Everything you do turns to shit! Daughter: Ouch! That hurts. I wish you wouldn’t say things like that to me. Mother: You have no sense of humor. I was only kidding.

Both the first and second intervention of the mother inculcate shame in her daughter. But the second harmful comment does more than shame the daughter, it also invalidates the daughter’s mild protest. The mother’s second harsh communication also includes a gaslighting quality inasmuch as it includes a repudiation of the daughter’s perception and judgment of what is going on. Also, the second communication contains a denial of the fact that the mother had said something hurtful to her daughter. Neither the content of what she said in the 21 George Robert Bach and Herb Goldberg. Creative Aggression. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974, p. 251. 22 Dorpat, Gaslighting, p. 40.

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first harmful communication or how she said it (e.g., tone of voice) indicated to the daughter or anyone else that she was “only kidding.” Therefore, the mother in the above vignette was inculcating not only shame but also a state of mental confusion, engendered by the mother’s denial that what she had said in the first communication was intended to be serious and not humorous. Confusion was also induced in the daughter by the mother’s rejection of the daughter’s protest as well as the daughter’s judgment about what was going on. One episode of the double whammy like the one just recounted is not likely to cause lasting psychic damage to the daughter. However, when the double whammy and gaslighting are used repeatedly for months or years, they are bound to have destructive effects on the mental health and psychic development of everyone, and especially of children. The double whammy is an informal method of mind control employed widely (though mainly unconsciously) in our society as an effective tactic for dominating others through inculcating shame and other painful emotions, and for impairing, at least temporarily, the other person’s cognitive functions. The double whammy is analogous to the one-two punch in boxing wherein an initial fast left jab or uppercut is followed immediately by a powerful righthand haymaker to the head of one’s opponent. Like the one-two punch, the double whammy is a two-phase type of abuse that is effective for silencing and beating one’s opponent. The first hurtful manipulative intervention sets up the other person for the even more powerful and destructive second (gaslighting) intervention. A businessman, Mr. A., used the double whammy tactic for shaming and dominating his wife in social situations. In this way he unconsciously attempted to enlist others as admiring witnesses of his superiority and domination over his wife. One evening Mr. and Mrs. A. had the following interaction at the front door of their friends’ home as they were about to say good-bye: Mr. A.: Why are we leaving so early? You’re being antisocial. (Though Mr. A. talks in a joking manner to his wife, there is an angry and contemptuous edge to his voice.) Mrs. A.: It’s getting late and we have to get up early tomorrow. Mr. A.: It’s not late! You are a party pooper! (said contemptuously.) As a result of Mr. A’s two insulting communications, Mrs. A. at first felt acutely embarrassed in the company of her friends. Within less than an hour this changed to shame and then gradually to a feeling state of depression. Note that in the above narrative there is a gaslighting property to Mr. A.’s second harsh com182


munication, “It’s not late!” By saying this, he repudiates and attacks his wife’s judgment about lateness at the same time that he is shaming her.

CASE VIGNETTE OF THE DOUBLE WHAMMY At a social gathering, wife Jane verbally attacks husband John:

Jane: Speak up, John. You are being a royal wimp! (said contemptuously.) John: Oh! That hurts. I wish you wouldn’t put me down like that. Jane: There you go again. You’re too sensitive; I was only kidding you.

Jane’s second manipulative intervention in the above vignette was even more abusive than the first because, in addition to being insulting, it invalidated John’s capability for interpersonal perception. John accurately observed and responded to the hostile quality of Jane’s first utterance. Jane’s second verbal attack is a gaslighting communication designed not only to shame John but also to impair his confidence in the accuracy of his mental capacity for perception and judgment.

METACOMMUNICATIONS In the above vignette Jane asserts she is “only kidding.” How does one person communicate to another the message that one is trying to be funny, to tease, to make a joke, rather than being serious or “straight”? Ordinarily this is done nonverbally by what are called metacommunications. A raised eyebrow, a slight smile, a gesture, a tone of irony, an exaggerated dramatization, and the like, are metacommunications used to convey a message such as, “This is a joke,” “I’m only teasing,” or “Don’t take me literally.” Metacommunications can be conveyed by verbal or nonverbal aspects of spoken communication or by both at the same time. As an expert in the double-whammy technique, Jane could make her first disparaging message either in a “straight” way, without the accompanying metacommunications noted above. More often, she might do so in an ambiguous way designed to engender doubt and confusion in her victim. In this example, Jane spoke in an ambiguous way, and was not clearly sending a metacommunicative signal that her disparaging comment was actually only a teasing comment. Note that both her verbal communication and her nonverbal communication, functioning together, were designed to cause emotional distress as well as some confusion or other temporary mental impairment in the victim. The double whammy is a harmful method of mind control employed widely in everyday life as a method for attaining dominance over others through causing emotional distress and impairing, at least temporarily, their cognitive functions. The most common ways individuals control and dominate others are by the inculcation of painful emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, and anxiety. When 183


gaslighting and/or the double whammy are done repeatedly, the psychic damage may be serious; it can include enduring types of chronic psychiatric disorders.

THE IDEALIZATION OF POWER OVER PEOPLE One reason abusive and coercive modes of communicating and relating are embedded in many speech patterns in Western societies is because power over people is idealized in the Western world.23 In his book, Twenty-five Steps to Power and Mastery Over People, James Van Fleet claims that readers who follow his recommendations, “can gain power, influence, and control over others and attain complete mastery over people.24 Van Fleet understands the interpersonal power accruing to individuals who know how to evoke intense emotions of fear and desire in people. He explains effective methods for covertly gaining control, and tells why these methods require knowledge of human emotions and motivation. He suggests, for example, ways of motivating a person to do something like buying a car he does not need by arousing his desire. Van Fleet asserts, “If you can’t move a person by arousing his desire, then turn the coin over and move him to action by arousing his fear.”25 I suspect that Van Fleet has, at some unconscious level, doubts about the unethical and immoral quality of his recommendations. I infer this from his repeated defensive claims about his techniques being legitimate and morally correct. He writes, “It is certainly not illegal or immoral for you to use brainwashing as a powerful but fully legitimate technique for persuasion to convert a person to your way of thinking so he will do what you want him to do.”26 Note especially the words certainly and fully. The use of those adverbs in that context is itself a brainwashing technique. Charismatic individuals appreciate the powerful effects that communicating in terms of absolutes and expressing themselves with an excess of certitude can have on many people. The above is an example of what I earlier described as a denial of abuse. Unfortunately, using Van Fleet’s methods for mind control and exploiting other people is not illegal. So far as I know, there are no laws forbidding advertisers, politicians, salesmen, evangelists or spouses from using these and similar manipulative methods for achieving mind control and exploiting others. Van Fleet cites the Methodist minister John Wesley’s extraordinary skills in converting thousands to Christianity in the 1700s. Van Fleet is unusually percep23 Arno Gruen, The Betrayal of the Self: The Fear of Autonomy in Men and Women, trans. Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum. New York: Grove Press, 1988. 24 James K. Van Fleet. Twenty-five Steps to Power and Mastery Over People. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing, 1983, p. 7. Italics are mine. 25 Van Fleet, Twenty-five Steps to Power and Mastery, p. 131. 26 Van Fleet, Twenty-five Steps to Power and Mastery, p. 217. Italics are mine.

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tive for understanding the similarity between the methods used by evangelists such as Wesley for bringing about conversions and the methods totalitarian regimes or salesmen like himself use for brainwashing. For more on John Wesley’s effective methods for instilling fear of eternal punishment in people, see Chapter 12. As Wesley did, the leaders of contemporary political and religious cults are able to gain control over their followers after they have first managed to convince them of their actual or imagined sins and inadequacies, be they cognitive, psychiatric, or moral. Van Fleet’s advice (“constant repetition is the key to success in brainwashing”) explains why the repeated use of covert methods of interpersonal abuse is effective in achieving control over the thinking and lives of victims. Unfortunately, Van Fleet’s conclusion that the use of brainwashing methods could win “Power and Mastery Over People” as well as achieve professional and financial success too often proves to be true. Communication in our society has been poisoned by individuals like Van Fleet, who use speech to manipulate, intimidate, and coerce other people. Both the mass media and public discourse are burdened with an excess of skilled manipulators who have learned how to intimidate, lie, and emotionally manipulate their fellow men. We have few truth-tellers, and those we have are seldom heard or understood because the majority of citizens can no longer distinguish truth from fiction.

EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL VIOLENCE In my professional opinion, emotional violence (abuse) is the most devastating cause of human misery and psychiatric illness in the US today. Repeated experiences of physical, sexual, or emotional violence are the major causes of chronic psychic trauma and, except for some of the psychoses, of most psychiatric disorders. Aside from the scientific literature on chronic psychic trauma, there is little formal research or “hard data” on this topic against which to test my hypothesis that emotional violence (abuse) is the single most important cause not only of human misery, but also of all but a few of the psychiatric disorders. My hypothesis about the devastating effects of repeated emotional abuse is based on over fifty years of clinical experience with the victims of emotional abuse, in addition to my study over the past three decades of the psychological effects of chronic trauma. Many people believe that psychic trauma stems mainly from life-threatening accidents and catastrophes such as vehicle accidents, fires, earthquakes, floods, 185


rape, physical assaults, and the like. That opinion is at least thirty years out-ofdate. Those who work and write in the field of psychic trauma have gradually come to realize that it is chronic trauma (cumulative trauma) and not acute (single episode) trauma that accounts for severe types of psychological damage to humans. Also, chronic (and not acute) trauma is a more important cause of various psychiatric disorders. Single, life-threatening kinds of acute trauma, such as vehicle accidents, do cause psychiatric disorders. However, the traumas that do occur in such circumstances most often are less severe and/or of much shorter duration than the disorders caused by chronic (cumulative) trauma. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis are moving away from their preoccupation with the concept that gross single traumatic events, such as accidents, injuries, deaths, divorce, physical illnesses, and so on, are likely to play an important causal role in the formation of psychiatric disorders. Both clinical experience and empirical research tell us that, in the great majority of cases, the long-lasting and repeated interactions with abusive or neglectful parents and significant others are what account for the developmental failures, maldevelopments, fixations, and unresolved conflicts of the adult personality. The child’s pathogenic interactions with parents in childhood and/or the defenses against them are repeated in adult life. My opinion is consistent with the American psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut’s view of what causes psychopathology. He wrote, “clinical experience tells us that in the great majority of cases it is the specific pathogenic personality of the parent(s), and specific features of the atmosphere in which the child grows up that account for the maldevelopments, fixations, and unsolvable inner conflicts characterizing the adult personality.”27 Empirical research from the many studies on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder also supports the conclusion given above on the importance of cumulative trauma, rather than single-episode trauma; it is cumulative trauma that creates psychological damage. Research on chronic trauma demonstrates that the most powerful determinants of psychological damage are the duration and intensity of traumatic events.28 Emotional violence can be and often is as damaging to the person as physical violence, and possibly more damaging. The corporal punishment of prisoners was first made illegal in some states in the nineteenth century; other states followed in the twentieth century. Physical punishment — except for the corporal punishment of children in the US — has dropped out of favor. In our prisons to27 Heinz Kohut, The Restoration of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, 1977, p. 187. 28 Dorpat, Wounded Monster, pp. 102–104.

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day an emphasis on emotional violence and the punitive deprivation of prisoners has taken its place. A fair number of scholars, including this author, doubt that this shift from physical punishment to one of emotional or mental punishment constitutes progress or is more humane. Emotional violence is a type of violence that damages and at worst destroys the mind and soul of the individual. The enduring destruction imposed by corporal punishment is rarely physical; rather, what endures is the destruction done to the mind (or soul) of the child. The destructiveness of both explicit and covert emotional abuse affects both the emotions and mental functioning. The harm done by emotional abuse varies from slight, temporary emotional disturbances to serious cases where intense and repeated abuse has caused severe and lasting psychic damage, including what the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and later several psychoanalysts such as Leonard Shengold and Leon Wurmser call soul murder.29

GUILT AND SHAME AS EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE Emotional violence as well as other kinds of violence induce a variety of overwhelmingly disturbing emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, helplessness, and the like. The awareness of the destructive effect of shaming is relatively new, and prior to about 1990 there were few articles or books on the pathologic effects of shaming children or adults. In an otherwise excellent book published in 1992 on the effects of corporal punishment of children, the American historian Philip Greven does not once mention the fact that corporal punishment of children can engender excessive and pathological amounts of shame.30 The famous pediatrician Benjamin Spock wrote about the emotional abuse and punishment he received from his mother.

In my childhood I was held firmly in line by my mother’s stern rulings and even sterner disapproval. She didn’t just disapprove of an act. Her facial expression was intended to convey withdrawal of love — for the time being, anyway — and the substitution of condemnation and some anger. It’s what I call normal discipline, used in an unnecessarily severe form in my mother’s case, its purpose being to make the child feel guilty.31

As an enduring result of his mother’s emotional abuse, Spock claims that he and his six siblings “grew up with a more severe conscience and a greater sense of guilt than was necessary or healthy.”32

29 Henrik Ibsen, John Gabriel orkman, pp. 179–353. In The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, trans. William Archer, vol. II. New York: Scribner’s, 1912; Shengold, Soul Murder; and Leon Wurmser, The Mask of Shame. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1974. 30 Greven, Spare the Child, p. 83. 31 Spock, Dr. Spock on Parenting, p. 150. Italics are mine. 32 Spock, Dr. Spock on Parenting, pp. 150–151.

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Dr. Spock’s account of the emotional effects of his mother’s methods of punishment are typical of other accounts of his time inasmuch as he entirely omits any mention of how his mother shamed him. Prior to about 1990, few writers had much awareness of the way shame is inculcated. Several comments made by Dr. Spock about his mother’s relations with her children strongly suggest that she was inculcating shame more than guilt in her children. Spock speaks of her “withdrawal of love” and the “condemnation” of her misbehaving children. The withdrawal of love and condemnation of the wrongdoer points to the inculcation of shame, not guilt. Another statement made by Spock makes me believe his mother intended to shame her children; that statement is: “She didn’t just disapprove of an act.” If a parent merely wants to instill guilt in a child and not also shame, the parent limits the disapproval to the wrongful deed, not the child. Guilt is linked with wrongful acts or deeds; shame is associated with the whole self. Attacks on the self or withdrawal of love engender shame; criticism or discipline directed at one’s wrongful deeds engenders guilt. Of course, both guilt and shame can occur together at the same time, but the most damaging and demeaning is usually shame.33

THE COLLECTIVE DENIAL OF EMOTIONAL VIOLENCE Early in my psychiatric training, another psychiatric resident, who I call Dr. Bob here, told me about his interactions with a disturbed young patient. She cried when she told him about her husband’s emotional abuse of her. Dr. Bob responded to her emotional disturbance by reminding her of a well-known rhyme: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, But words alone can’t hurt me.” On hearing this, I was stunned; what he said to his patient seemed wrong, but I could not say explicitly what was wrong. Now I can spell out my objections to his tactless and unempathic utterance. His intervention shows a striking lack of empathy for the patient, and a serious absence of emotional attunement with the patient’s unhappy plight. One could even surmise that he had partly replicated and reenacted the trauma she had recently sustained from her husband. Just as her husband had been unmindful and disrespectful of her feelings, so he (the therapist) was also closing his ears to her painfully sad message. The psychotherapist’s response denied that her husband’s abusive comments caused her emotional distress. His intervention had the same meaning as the poem: a denial of the truth that emotional abuse can be harmful. Perhaps he 33 Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, pp. 139–156.

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felt he was helping her to feel better by using the denial contained in the verse to cover over her distress and somehow dissipate the painful feelings induced within her by her husband’s emotional violence. The collective denial of abuse is one of seven characteristics of the social systems of domination described in this book, and is discussed in more detail in Chapter 15. To explain the concept of collective denial, I shall describe a study I made about the attitude of physicians toward their abusive training programs in the US. My research indicated that most physicians deny the emotional and physical abusiveness of the medical and surgical training programs for interns and residents in teaching hospitals. At the time the study was conducted, interns and residents were often compelled to work over ninety hours a week, and they frequently worked without rest or sleep for as long as twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The resulting fatigue and sleep loss impaired their ability to function effectively in the care of hospitalized patients. Over the long term, such stressful conditions can have damaging effects on both the physical and mental health of interns and residents; sometimes the quality of the medical care they provide is also compromised by their fatigue.34 My study indicated that one important reason the medical profession has done so little to remedy this long-standing abuse of doctors in training is because physicians collectively deny the significance of this harmful practice. Here I use the term denial in its psychoanalytic sense, in order to describe a mental defense mechanism in which individuals unconsciously block out of their awareness some aspect of reality they find disturbing. In short, doctors as a group have not wanted to face and acknowledge the truth about the harm done to trainees by their excessively long hours of work. Physicians avoid the troubling consciousness of their abusive training practices by rationalizing, discounting, trivializing, ignoring, minimizing, and other means of hiding from themselves and others the destructive effects of their training programs on interns and residents. The term “collective” is used here to denote two related ideas. First, “collective” is a descriptive term that simply means that the denial is shared by many members of a group. A majority of physicians deny the abusiveness and harmfulness of the many hours interns and residents are compelled to work. Secondly, the term “collective” implies that the social pressures in the group are a major dynamic in causing the denial. Collective denial means that it is the predominantly unconscious influence of group pressure that shapes the motivation of families,

34 Theo. L. Dorpat, “Doctor Abuse and the Interactional Dynamics of Graduate Medical Training. The International Journal of Communicative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy 7:39–40, 1992.

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larger groups, even whole nations to deny certain painful realities. Collective denial is a product of what Irving Janis calls “groupthink.”35 The term “groupthink” refers to tacitly accepted rules of behavior within a group, a sort of group norm of behavior that is hard for individuals within the group to buck because they want to fit into the group. Groupthink is not necessarily bad, but members of a group should be aware of its existence, and that it is probably influencing their thinking. This is also true of the training process of physicians, wherein powerful pressures are placed on trainees not to complain or even speak about the harsh, abusive conditions under which they work. After the interns and residents of the younger generations become established professionals and are themselves called upon to teach and supervise the upcoming next generations of interns and residents, they often repeat both the abuse and the denial of the abuse. They do unto the younger generation of doctors what was previously done to them. Here we have another example of the transmission of a form of abuse, this time from one generation to another generation. This intergenerational transmission of abuse among physicians has been going on for more than a hundred years. What is most shocking about this prevailing, destructive approach to internship and residency training is that all physicians are taught in medical school that prolonged stress and lack of sleep are harmful to an individual’s mental and physical health. Physicians dedicate their lives to the health and well-being of those they serve, and then at a critical stage of their professional development they do things as damaging and self-destructive as working more than ninety hours a week and losing many hours of sleep. Only their primitive need for groupthink can explain the irrational and collective denial of the destructive effects of the excessively prolonged hours of work and sleep deprivation during their training.

CONCLUSION Unfortunately, collective denial is pervasive in our society. The various theories — discussed in Chapter 10 — that have been put forth to provide a moral justification for punishment meted out by the prison system, as well as for the corporal punishment of children, provide support for continuing to maintain the collective denial about the long-term harmfulness of these barbaric and violent kinds of punishments.

35 Irving L. Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascos. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

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CHAPTER 15. SOCIAL SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION AND PUNISHMENT The types of punishment discussed in this book, including corporal punishment, the prison system, the death penalty, and emotional violence, are social systems of domination and punishment. The goal all these systems share is to dominate and control the lives of human beings. These systems of domination are parts of the network of systems the American theologian Walter Wink calls the “domination system.” In what follows, I am indebted to Professor Wink for the knowledge and wisdom contained in his award-winning books on the operation of this system.1 Professor Wink writes: “This overarching network of powers is . . . is characterized by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all.”2 I have emphasized the term relations because my goal here is to elucidate some of the different ways in which the systems of domination and punishment discussed in this book are manifested in interpersonal and social relations. Powers such as a factory or a city government possess an outer physical manifestation (e.g., buildings) and an inner manifestation, a corporate culture or collective personality. 1 Four major books by Walter Wink include: (1) The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. New York: Doubleday, 1999; (2) Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 1992; (3) Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1984; and (4) Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 1986. 2 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 39. Italics are mine.

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The domination system thrives on the myth (religion) of redemptive violence. In this myth, righteous ends justify using any means; for example, according to this myth, perpetrators of violence are justified when they use violence against evildoers. This myth is internalized early in life through the influence of the mass media, movies, and the family, and although it has a powerful influence on our lives few people are aware of this myth or how it has corrupted our society. The myth of redemptive violence legitimates and rationalizes the use of violence in punishment inasmuch as the punishment is supposedly justified by its function of destroying or incapacitating evildoers. Indeed, the myth of redemptive violence idealizes and valorizes the use of violent, even lethal, punishment against those who are deemed to be “evil.” Moreover, by legitimatizing the use of violent punishment against offenders, the myth of redemptive violence dissolves whatever guilt and empathy for the offending person may have existed and possibly restrained those who would do violence to the offender. Empathy for the offender and awareness of guilt are the last internal barriers (restraints) to the acting out of violent impulses. By justifying violence and making it fascinating, entertaining, and socially acceptable, the myth of redemptive violence and the domination system are able to delude people into complying with a system that is cheating them out of their very lives.3 Unlike the domination system in the centers of power during the Roman Empire, the centers of power today in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe, reside more in large corporations than in national governments. Our national government is mainly dominated by large corporations and the very rich, who use the awesome powers of the state (including the criminal justice system and the armed forces) to maintain and expand their wealth and power. Professor Wink has firsthand knowledge of the long struggle of the black people in South Africa against their domination by the apartheid system. His book, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa, recounts his experiences as a nonviolent volunteer who worked on behalf of the abolition of the apartheid system.4 Wink illustrates what the domination system means by discussing the story of how black people in the late twentieth century struggled, for the most part in a nonviolent way, against apartheid. They were fully aware that they were being persecuted — not only by some individual white people, but also to a greater extent by the apartheid system.

3 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 55. 4 Walter Wink, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1987.

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When the black people would see government-sponsored propaganda on the television screen, they would warn each other, “The System is lying again.” The most effective way to stop blacks from colluding with the white man’s government was to say, “You are supporting the System.”5 The disenfranchised and persecuted blacks in South Africa recognized that nearly all of the sources of power in that country conspired and worked together to maintain the unjust apartheid system They also sensed that it was a total system, extending into the global economy and world political system.6 As manifested in South Africa, the domination system was characterized by unjust economic relations, authoritarian power relations, biased race relations, and the use of violence to maintain those abusive practices and systems. We cannot exist without laws and a criminal justice system that curbs some forms of violence and prohibits the killing and harming of people. Tragically, our criminal justice system and our laws have been co-opted and corrupted by the domination system. “Law is sucked into the contest for power; it becomes both an instrument of violence and a generator of violence, thus limiting its utility as a means of reducing violence.”7 The resulting sociopathology of the prison system is discussed in Chapter 16. In Western societies, the ways individuals and social systems attempt to control and dominate others have changed in the last several centuries. With the rise of the democracies and the dethronement or disempowering of previously powerful groups such as the nobility, the military, and the like, there has occurred a gradual change from the use of direct and explicit even if coercive methods of interpersonal and social control to methods that are more indirect, subtle, and covert. One basic change in the social institutions of Western societies arising out of the Enlightenment was the replacement of overt authority by some measure of freedom from external oppression and domination. But the tendency of many humans and groups to seek power and control over others did not disappear when authoritarianism was rejected — or at least modified — in many social institutions, including the family. Beginning in the late 1800s and continuing through the twentieth century, the use of overt or coercive authority (except for a few situations such as law enforcement, the penal system, and the military) disappeared and was replaced by covert methods of interpersonal control and domination.8 5 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 39. 6 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 339. 7 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 79. 8 Dorpat, Gaslighting, p. xviii.

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The enforcing power behind overt authority is force and threats of force, while the enforcement of covert methods of interpersonal control is commonly mediated by the inculcation of shame and other painful emotions. Despite all the progress made in the past two and a half centuries in the development of democratic institutions in the United States, the need of some individuals and groups to dominate and control others is still prevalent in our culture. Even an agency of the US government has endorsed the use of dominating approaches in its operations. “Dominate. Intimidate. Control. . . ” is the motto posted at the entrance to the Washington, DC, headquarters of the Transportation Security Administration, and according to the author James Bovard it both epitomizes and summarizes the federal mentality toward air travelers.9

SEVEN KEY CHARACTERISTICS PUNISHMENT

OF

SOCIAL SYSTEMS

OF

DOMINATION

AND

The following seven characteristics define the nature and the function of the sociopathological social systems of domination studied in this book. These systems include: corporal punishment of children; the prison system; emotional abuse; and the death penalty. 1. Acceptance of Punishment. The sociopathology of these social systems of punishment is engendered in individuals mainly by the culture in which they live. In contrast to antisocial behavior, sociopathology is not ordinarily viewed as something forbidden by the culture. For example, few people in the US would describe the spanking of a child by the child’s parents as antisocial. A majority of Americans consider spanking as a normal way to treat misbehavior in children. Similarly, few people are cognizant of the enduring harmfulness of the ways guards relate to prisoners. 2. Need to Control, Dominate, and Punish. The primary and major goal of these social systems is the punishment and domination of certain individuals or groups of individuals. The intent to dominate and punish is conscious in the perpetrators of corporal punishment of children and in capital punishment. Prison guards are aware of the need to control, dominate, and punish prisoners. However, frequently the perpetrators of emotional violence, and especially of covert emotional abuse, are not aware of the fact that their punitive communications are motivated by desires to dominate and punish. The power of these systems of domination over others is constructed and maintained by punishment and/or acts or threats of emotional or physical vio9 James Bovard, “The Sorry Record of the Transportation Security Administration.” Reason 3:24–31, 2004.

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Chapter 15. Social Systems of Domination and Punishment

lence. In the many situations where the perpetrator of emotional violence inculcates shame, the perpetrator’s power stems from the explicit or implied threat of repeated destructive shaming. 3. Inculcating Disturbing Emotions. By their punitive and dominating behavior, the perpetrators inculcate long-lasting disturbing emotions — and especially shame — but also anxiety, helplessness, and fear. The sociopathology develops from these disturbing and painful emotions. Repeated and/or prolonged shaming most often triggers rage, hatred, and a desire for revenge. The victims may act out the rage and the need for revenge in acts of violence against others. 4. Punishment and Psychic Damage. The punishment inflicted by these systems of domination often causes mental suffering, developmental deficits, personality malformations, and various psychiatric disorders. The amount and kind of psychic damage done to individuals who are punished and dominated by these systems of domination depends mainly on the duration and intensity of the emotional and physical violence done to them.10 The degree of psychic damage ranges from temporary emotional disturbance to permanent psychological trauma and damage, even soul murder. In the case of those prisoners who are sentenced to be executed, the psychological damage occurs during the many years (e.g., nine to twelve or more) they commonly are incarcerated, between the time they are sentenced and the time they are executed. Today we know that the inculcation of shame in the victims by punishment and scapegoating done by these systems of domination plays a far more important role in the psychological damage than we had recognized until just a few years ago. 5. No Individual Moral Responsibility. These four social systems of domination and punishment do far more harm than they do good for human beings. The moral responsibility for the destructiveness of these systems resides predominantly in those who design the systems rather than in the individuals who work in or for these systems. The individuals working in or for those systems are not, for the most part, aware of the psychic harm they are doing to other people. The collective denial mentioned in Item 7 below accounts for some of this lack of awareness. 6. Lack of Awareness. In the United States, there is a widespread lack of knowledge and understanding of the nature of these systems of domination and punishment, and about the harm they do to human beings. The lack of awareness of the nature of these abusive systems is found not only in the individuals who 10 Dorpat, Wounded Monster, pp. 102–104. My review of the research literature indicates that the most powerful determinants of psychological damage caused by psychic trauma are the duration and intensity of the traumatic events.

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work in or for these systems of domination, but also in the majority of people in the US.11 My study of the sociopathology of social systems of punishment and domination opens up a new and previously neglected dimension of both individual and group behavior. My notions about sociopathology are informed by psychiatric and psychoanalytic perspectives and knowledge. The disciplines of sociology and social psychology could also offer illuminating insights into the development and functions of these social systems. 7. Collective Denial. Some but not all of the ignorance and lack of knowledge about the nature of these systems of domination and their damaging effects on people stems from a collective denial about the nature of these systems and their harmful effects. The collective denial is widespread, including not only those who work within these systems, but many others. As used here, the term “collective” has two different but related meanings. The first meaning is merely descriptive and is used to refer to a group of people. The second meaning is more complex and refers to an unconscious motive shared by members of the group to conceal some disturbing truths about what the group is doing. For example, many fundamentalist parents share the false idea that spanking is good for their children. As a group they support this false idea because they unconsciously want to conceal the fact that spanking is harmful to their children. This denial of the harmfulness of spanking is supported by their fundamentalist relatives and friends who share their false beliefs. In short, the fundamentalist parent is confronted with strong social pressures both to believe in the positive and corrective value of spanking and at the same time to deny the harmfulness of spanking.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS Although the social systems of domination and punishment are pervasive, few Americans are aware of these systems and their destructive effects. My hope is that this book will provide more awareness of these toxic social systems. I warn readers of the price one must pay for this insight, and the price is the temporary mental pain one must tolerate when one’s denial is demolished. To understand the truth about these harmful social systems requires relinquishing one’s denial, which in the past has prevented one’s understanding of their existence and their noxious effects

11 For the most part, I limit my comments on this topic to the United States, because I know little about the workings of systems of domination in other countries.

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CHAPTER 16. THE SOCIOPATHOLOGY OF THE PRISON SYSTEM The term “sociopathology” refers to the pathology of certain social systems and the people who work or in other ways participate in the actions of those social systems. Until recently, psychoanalysts and most other mental health professionals received little instruction on the importance of culture and social institutions in the formation of sociopathology among individuals and groups. The Canadian psychoanalysts, Doctors Marcia Gear, Melvyn Hill, and Ernesta Liendo, however, make the distinction

between psychopathology and sociopathology, both of which are transmitted to the analysand [the patient] as a result of his particular insertion in a family and in society. Obviously the sociopathology will be more broadly based, and its fundamental conflicts will be represented in the group to which the analysand belongs, and reflected in its national, regional, ethnic, or civic culture. The psychopathology will derive more strictly from his family.1

Mental health professionals are concerned mainly with psychopathology and the treatment of psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, obsessions, phobias, panic attacks, and the like. These disorders have their major beginnings in childhood and in the family, whereas sociopathology stems mainly from cultural influences. For example, consider those who work as prison guards. Their impersonal and detached mode of relating to prisoners is shaped and regulated by the rules of the prison system and by their training.

1 Maria C. Gear, Melvyn A. Hill, and Ernesta C. Liendo, Working Through Narcissism: Treating Its Sadomasochistic Structure. New York: Jason Aronson, 1981, p. 339.

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HATE THE SYSTEM, NOT THE PERSON One can hate a system that treats humans with disrespect and aggression, and at the same time love the people who work within that system. Nelson Mandela wrote, “In prison my anger toward whites decreased, but my hatred for the system [apartheid] grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another.”2 The prison system in the US treats prisoners in an inhumane and cruel way. Although the prison system masquerades as an institution for preventing crime, for dispensing justice, and for protecting the public, in actuality it does this poorly or not at all; it does not do what it purports to do. I believe that the destructive effects of the present system far outweigh what little it does that is constructive and beneficial to offenders or for society. I am fully aware of the need for society to have a system (or systems) established for attaining justice, for the prevention of crime, and for the education, treatment, and rehabilitation of offenders. The present punitive prison system seldom accomplishes those purposes. The responsibility for the harm done by the prison system resides in the system and not in the guards or other individuals who work within the prison or in the criminal justice system. Despite the fact that in Chapter 7 I have made some sharp criticisms of the impersonal and detached ways guards relate to prisoners, I believe that as individuals their personal responsibility for the effects of their behavior on inmates is greatly diminished in comparison to the effect of the system itself. With few exceptions they are doing to prisoners what they have been hired and taught to do. The nature of their duties and their relations with inmates is prescribed and regulated by the malignantly punitive system in which they work. One of the first to criticize the prison system and at the same time exonerate the prison guards was the prison warden and reformer Thomas M. Osborne. For more about this charismatic prison warden and his prison reforms, see Chapter 8. Osborne was sympathetic to the plight of the guards as well as the prisoners when he wrote: I can conceive no more terribly disintegrating moral experience than that of being a keeper over convicts. . . . However much I pity the prisoners, I think that spiritually their position is far preferable to that of their guards. These latter are placed in an impossible position; for they are not to blame for the System under which their finer qualities have few chances of being exercised. . . . I hope and believe that by far the greater number of

2 Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Johannesburg: Macdonald Purnell, 1994, p. 559.

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Chapter 16. The Sociopathology of the Prison System officers serving in our prisons are naturally honorable men, but so were the slave-owners before the Civil War.3

Warden Osborne acknowledged that the prison experience is brutalizing and dehumanizing for both prisoners and guards. This opinion is shared by others, including the journalist Ted Conover who worked for as a guard for a year in Sing Sing, and also by the physician Dr. Robert L. Cohen, who served for five years as director of Montefiore Rikers Island Health Services, which provides health care for inmates of the New York City jail on Rikers Island. Dr. Cohen said, “Prisons are terrible institutions. . . . Prisons deform everyone who spends time in that environment, whether they are inmates, guards, or medical professionals.”4 Osborne wisely compares the prison system with the earlier pre-Civil War slavery system. Just as there are today guards and other prison employees who are honorable and decent women and men, so there were in the days of slavery honorable, decent slave owners, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Especially after the mass incarceration movement began, around 1970, prisons in the United States have become a large and prosperous industry. In California, more money is spent on corrections each year than on higher education. A few decades ago Californians could boast of having the best schools in the world; today, the quality of the state’s schools (from grade school through college) has fallen as more state money has gone to pay for the rapidly growing prison population. California has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of incarceration of any state in the country.5 Those individuals or companies who make huge profits from the prison-industrial complex grow richer when the prisons, whether publicly or privately owned, fail to correct or rehabilitate felons. This is the only business that profits from failure. The more prisoners they fail to rehabilitate, the more prisoners they keep in prison, and the more guards they employ.6 According to the California psychiatrist Dr. Ted Kupers, the prison-industrial complex is an extensive, interlocking web of entrenched interests that profit from prison expansion. Kupers lists the following seven groups in this complex: (1) politicians who use the appeal of law and order to gain votes, stay in office, 3 Conover, New Jack, p. 198. Italics are mine. 4 Skolnick, “War on Drugs Is Helping Tuberculosis Start a Deadly Comeback,” p. 3178; and Conover. New Jack, p. 207. 5 Domanick, Cruel Justice, p. 255. 6 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 265.

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and frighten citizens into supporting the kinds of “tough” laws they advocate; (2) state and federal administrations and governmental agencies that control the criminal justice system; (3) correctional employees (e.g., guards); (4) private corporations and contractors who profit from the construction of prisons and provide supplies to them; (5) private prison corporations who contract with states to run correctional facilities; (6) private suppliers of prison medical and psychiatric services; and (7) for-profit companies that utilize prisoner labor. (The average pay to prisoners is only forty-three cents per hour.)7 The prison-industrial complex is a stepchild of the mass incarceration movement — it feeds on its own failures to “correct” prisoners while continuing to expand and garnering immense profits at the expense of all other public services and priorities.8

RACISM IN RURAL PRISONS The writer Tracy Huling has written the moving story of the increasing construction in recent decades of prisons in rural America.9 Prisons have become a growth industry in rural America; in the US today there are more prisoners than farmers. Pervasive racial hatred in prisons is a deeply disturbing consequence of the increasing dependence of rural communities on new prisons. Racial tensions have been exacerbated by the social disparity between the white workforce in rural America and the prisoners, who are predominantly people of color who had lived in large cities. About one-half of all prisoners in US prisons are black; about one-sixth are Latino.10 In my own state of Washington, several lawsuits were filed in the late 1990s by African-American correctional officers against the Department of Corrections. Some white guards at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day “Happy Nigger Days.” Several white guards openly bragged about their associations with racist hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.11 Another lawsuit filed in 1999 by black employees of the Washington Correctional Center in Shelton included complaints about organized neo-Nazi actions, including “Heil Hitler” salutes by some white guards and the distribution of racist hate literature in the prison.12

7 Kupers, Prison Madness, pp. 266–269. 8 Kupers, Prison Madness, p. 268. 9 Tracy Huling, “Building a Prison Economy in Rural America,” pp. 191–213. In Mauer and Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment. 10 Huling, “Building a Prison Economy,” p. 211. 11 Huling, “Building a Prison Economy,” p. 209. 12 Huling, “Building a Prison Economy,” p. 209.

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Tracy Huling provides a convincing argument for her claim that “the use of prisoners as moneymakers for struggling rural communities has become a major force driving criminal justice policy toward mass incarceration of the urban poor regardless of policy rationales like rising crime and prison overcrowding. . . . Federal and state governments are reluctant to pull the plug on the money interests that now lobby for and feed off prisons.”13 If the present policies of mass incarceration and the excessive construction of prisons in rural America are not stopped, we can expect catastrophic consequences for the health and welfare of many individuals and families in both urban and rural areas.14

THE SLAVERY SYSTEM AND THE PRISON SYSTEM — SOME COMPARISONS America’s prison system has much in common with the slavery system as it existed in the US prior to the end of the Civil War in 1865. Consider these comparisons. The system of slavery has existed for thousands of years; it is only in the past few hundred years that it has been eradicated in most countries. Throughout the centuries this abusive system was sustained and supported by nearly everyone, including perhaps a majority of white people in the early United States. For the many black people incarcerated in US prisons, the prison experience is a horrific replication of what their ancestors endured as slaves. Like slavery, corporal punishment and the punishment of incarceration have many advocates. Like slavery, the prison-industrial complex allows many people to earn a living and/or make a profit from an inhumane and mainly destructive system. The owners of slaves profited from their ownership in almost direct proportion to the number of slaves they owned; states and townships receive funding based on the number of inmates housed. Like slavery, the prison system is damaging to the families of those who are incarcerated. The victims of the prison system frequently also include the spouses and children of the individuals who are incarcerated. Like slavery, incarceration often breaks up the family and has harmful economic and psychological effects on the families of those who are incarcerated. Another way in which the prison system, like the other forms of punishment discussed in this book, is similar to slavery is in the massive and almost universal collective denial of most people in the US about the damage done to victims. Those who support corporal punishment and incarceration most often 13 Huling, “Building a Prison Economy,” p. 213. 14 Huling, “Building a Prison Economy,” p. 213.

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minimize or altogether deny the psychological damage done by these forms of punishment. What is worse are their predominantly false claims that these punishments bring about positive, constructive changes, either in children who are spanked or in adults who are incarcerated. This collective denial of the immense destructiveness of corporal punishment and incarceration is reinforced by different rationalizations, false ideas, and spurious justifications for the violence done to the victims. In the days of slavery, many people in this country denied how destructive this system was to the African-Americans, and their denial helped maintain and protect the slavery system for almost two hundred years. There were two particularly noxious categories of irrational denial. One was that the whites, after all, were doing good things for the poor, primitive blacks, such as, for example, providing them with food and lodging and “bringing them to the true God.” The second type of collective denial attacked the humanity of the Africans who were kidnapped and brought here in chains. The whites in power claimed that the blacks were either subhuman or, at the most, an inferior and therefore need not be treated as fully human. Like

CONCLUSION Like slavery, the predominant forms of punishment discussed in this book, including corporal punishment, incarceration, and emotional violence, constitute systems of domination causing enduring suffering and loss of freedom to their victims. In all of these systems of domination, the subjugated and dehumanized victims serve as scapegoats for those who dominate them. The spirit of domination is at the core of the social systems of slavery, of corporal punishment, of emotional abuse, and of our violent prison system.

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CHAPTER 17. CRIMES COMPARISON

OF THE

POOR

AND

CRIMES

OF THE

RICH – A

THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM The criminal justice system is unfair to the lower socioeconomic classes and the racial minorities. They often receive less than adequate legal representation, whereas the wealthy get the best attorneys money can buy. Our jails and prisons are filled with poor people; rich citizens are rarely incarcerated. The illegal and antisocial crimes of the large corporations and the very rich who manage them frequently go unnoticed and unpunished, but the poor people who are caught committing crimes are often punished severely. Under the “three strikes” law in California, even such petty misdemeanors as stealing a bottle of vitamins or a package of batteries worth $2.69, or a package of razor blades, counted as a third strike and provided sufficient grounds for sentencing offenders to 25 years–to–life in prison.1 At the same time that poor people were being sentenced to 25 years–to–life for committing petty larceny offences in California, a well-to-do neurosurgeon, Dr. H. Richard Winn, was convicted of far more serious crimes, and he did not have to spend even one day in prison. Dr. Winn, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Washington Medical School, was found guilty of obstructing a criminal investigation and of Medicare fraud. For his crimes he was fined $500,000 and required 1 Domanick, Cruel Justice, pp. 3–4.

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to give a thousand hours of community service. In return for Winn’s agreement to the above penalties, the government attorneys allowed him to keep his medical license and to spend no time in prison.2 The half-million-dollar fine is less than his yearly professional income and less than the amount he and his department received from fraudulent billings to Medicare and Medicaid in one year. Also, the fine is only about one-tenth of the amount of the legal fees paid by the University of Washington to the attorneys who defended Winn and a few other medical school personnel being investigated for fraud. The penalty requiring a thousand hours of community service is no big deal for physicians working at medical schools. Within a few years, Winn could readily provide that much free service as a part of his regular academic duties. Nearly all physicians working in medical schools spend several hours or more each week treating or supervising the treatment of indigent patients. When one considers the enormity of his crimes (fraud and obstruction of justice) and the years in which he engaged in those criminal activities, one is amazed that the US government allowed him to get off so easily. Compare the smallness of his penalties and above all the absence of any prison time with the severe punishments inflicted on poor people. For both capital and non-capital crimes, poor people and people of color are frequently discriminated against; often they do not obtain due process and adequate legal representation when compared with people who are white and who have the means to pay their attorneys. Both the laws themselves, as well as the ways in which the laws are administered and enforced, favor the rich and the white over the poor and people of color. There is another reason why the very rich who manage corporations elude legal liability, punishment, and incarceration. Under the protective cloak of these large corporations, they avoid responsibility and accountability for the corporations’ horrendous crimes against people and the environment. In the settlement of the lawsuits against the seven tobacco corporations several yeas ago, the corporations paid the states that sued them many billions of dollars, but the officers of those institutions paid nothing. Similarly, in legal actions against the large corporations that pollute America’s air, waterways, and land, the corporations — if they are found guilty — pay fines, but the officers are immune from prosecution. The corporations pay the fine, and most often they continue doing the same illegal activity as before. Fines are considered simply part of the cost of

2 The Seattle Times, Wednesday, March 17, 2002, pp. 1 and A14.

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Chapter 17. Crimes of the Poor and Crimes of the Rich – A Comparison

doing business and they usually are not large enough to deter the corporation from continuing the illegal activity.

LAWS ARE MADE FOR THE RICH IN ORDER TO DOMINATE THE POOR The prison system secretly serves the purposes of the very wealthy people and the large corporations that for the most part control and dominate the United States Federal government.3 The laws themselves, as well as the ways they are applied, serve the desires of the upper class for increasing and maintaining their wealth and power. The crimes of the rich either do not come within the provisions of our laws or else those who are charged with the enforcement of the law do not care to press charges against the rich.4 Years before I began to study punishment and incarceration, I read the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s remarkable book Discipline and Punish. I was skeptical of two of his opinions because he had not, in my opinion, presented sufficient empirical evidence to support them. Two of his major conclusions were, first, that prisons transform inmates into criminals; and second, that a nation’s laws as well as the ways in which the laws are enforced serve the needs of the very rich. Over time, as I have studied these subjects, I have become convinced he was correct in both of these conclusions.5 The greater crimes against humanity, such as the destruction of our natural environment and the exploitation of the poor, are committed by the corporations and the very rich who the manage corporations. The truly elegant vices and lucrative crimes, which our so-called justice system is far too intimidated or corrupted to intercept, remain the monopoly of the very rich. The rich, in the main, are protected and supported by the government and especially by the criminal justice system, the system that punishes, incarcerates, and scapegoats the poor, the nonwhite, and the uneducated. The laws were not made for all and in the name of all. The renowned attorney Clarence Darrow wrote that “The penal code is made and enforced by the ruling class, not upon themselves, but to keep the weak at the bottom of the social scale.”6 Instead of complaining that prisons fail to eliminate crime, one should, according to Professor Foucault, substitute the notion that prisons have succeeded extremely well in producing a specific type of criminality linked with the low3 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 282. 4 Darrow, Resist Not Evil, p. 149. 5 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 277, 282. 6 Darrow, Darrow, Resist Not Evil, pp. 147–149. Darrow describes the many kinds of unpunished crimes, including extortion, committed by wealthy people.

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er classes.7 “So successful has the prison been, that, after a century and a half of ‘failures,’ the prison still exists, producing the same results, and there is the greatest reluctance to dispense with it.”8

MANY LARGE CORPORATIONS ARE ANTISOCIAL SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION Many large American corporations are systems of domination; they also possess six of the seven characteristics of the systems of domination discussed in Chapter 15. The single characteristic some of them lack is the inculcation of shame and other painful emotions. Corporations are institutions created and sustained by the culture. One of the aims of corporations and their officers is to attain power and domination over others. The actions of many corporations cause great damage to others and to the environment. The harm they do is systematic, and lies in the way corporations function, and not necessarily in the actions of specific employees. However, there exists a collective denial on the part of those people working in or for the corporations as well as the general public about the destructiveness of many corporations. As a rule, the general public is ignorant of the damaging actions taken by many corporations. This ignorance is caused in part by the collective denial described above, but also by a consortium of institutions such as the mass media, and the advertising and public relations firms working for the corporations. Working together, these institutions and firms conceal from the public the destructiveness of certain corporations. The Canadian professor of law Joel Bakan defines the corporation as a legal institution whose “legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception, its own self-interest, regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause others.” Professor Bakan views the large corporation as a “pathological institution” and sees these corporations as dangerous possessors of the great power they wield over people and societies.9 Uncontrolled greed and moral indifference define the corporate world’s culture.10 Because of their immense power, corporations pose a threat to governments; corporation and their leaders have displaced politicians as the reigning oligarchs of our country.11 By the end of the twentieth century, the corporation had become the world’s dominant institution.12 For the owners of corporations, corporate law for7 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 277. 8 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 277. 9 Joel Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. New York: Free Press, 2004, pp. 1–2. 10 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 55. 11 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 25. 12 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 139.

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bids any motivation other than making money for the corporation and it shareholders. Improving the environment, assisting workers, or any kind of corporate social responsibility is thus illegal.13 Corporations have sought to have governmental regulations removed that limit their freedom to exploit people and the natural environment, and have largely won their struggle. Through lobbying, sophisticated public-relations campaigns, and political contributions to legislators, the corporations have turned the political system in the US and much public opinion against protective regulations. Corporate America’s long campaign to gain control of the US federal government has been remarkably successful; corporations now dominate the federal government. Through their lobbying and huge donations, they control Congress and the content of many of the laws passed by Congress. Corporate donations now fuel the political system in Washington, DC and to a greater or larger extent control other government centers, such as state legislatures.

MANY LARGE CORPORATIONS ARE ANTISOCIAL INSTITUTIONS The new antisocial institution we have created, the corporation, is a doom machine, an inhumane system that is going to destroy human beings and our natural environment unless our government enacts laws to regulate these organizations.14 Many scholars share the view of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who, in a 1933 Supreme Court judgment, stated that corporations are Frankenstein monsters capable of doing immense evil.15 Professor Joel Bakan, as well as others who acknowledge the immense destructiveness of some corporations, recommends that governments (especially the US government) pass laws putting in place regulations to bring corporations under democratic control, in order to ensure that they respect the interests of citizens, communities, and the environment.16 Professor Bakan asked Dr. Robert Hare, a psychologist and an expert on psychopaths, for his views on the question of whether corporations were psychopathic. When Dr. Hare was asked to apply his diagnostic checklist of psychopathic traits to the institutional character of corporations, he found a close match.17 Despite the fact that corporate executives believe they must often manipulate and harm others in pursuit of their corporation’s goals, they are not, according to Dr. Hare, psychopathic individuals. This is because corporate lead13 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 37. 14 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 71. 15 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 19. 16 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 109. 17 Bakan, The Corporation, pp. 56–57.

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ers can function normally outside the corporation. But to accomplish this, corporate managers must compartmentalize their lives; if they wish to be part of the corporation, they are compelled by the corporation’s culture to dissociate themselves from their own values. This situation, then, is another example of what was discussed in Chapter 15, where I stated that it is the system that needs to be changed, much more than in the individuals working within it, particularly in abusive social systems of domination such as the prison system. In his description of corporations, Dr. Hare emphasized the “lack of empathy and asocial tendencies as key characteristics of the corporation.”18 I agree, with the reservation that, in my opinion, the antisocial destructive acts of corporations against people and the environment are more devastating and significant than their asocial behavior. The term “antisocial” fits the corporations better than the older term “psychopathic” because it includes not only the moral deficiencies identified in the diagnosis of psychopath, but it also includes the corporations’ destructive and criminal (antisocial) actions against people and the environment. In the United States, the term Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) has replaced the older term psychopath in the official nomenclature of the American Psychiatric Association.19 The official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association lists seven characteristics of the Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD); for an individual, three or more of these must be present to make the diagnosis of APD. They are equally applicable to the present-day actions of corporations in the US. 1. Commits criminal acts. Professor J. Bakan writes, “Many major corporations engage in unlawful behavior, and some are habitual offenders with records that would be the envy of even the most prolific human criminals.”20 For example, General Electric (GE), the world’s largest corporation, had forty-two major legal broaches between 1990 and 2001. Most of these legal judgments against GE included fines. When corporations are caught breaking the law they pay fines and then they usually continue breaking the law in the same way as before, because the fines are trivial compared to the profits they make.21 2. Deceitfulness, repeated lying, and conning others. Corporations manipulate everybody, but especially public opinion, and many of them will lie or 18 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 57. 19 For a description of APD and the criteria for making this diagnosis, see pp. 701–706 of the official DSM—The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR, 4th ed., text revision. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000. 20 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 75. 21 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 75.

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deceive in order to further their goal of making profits. Corporations present themselves in a way that is appealing to the public but that does not accurately represent what the corporations are really like.22 Individuals with APD are notorious for their ability to use charm and deceit to conceal their antisocial activities and many of them are con artists. An active propaganda apparatus controlled by the world’s large corporations actively conceals their crimes against man and nature. The distribution of the pervasive and effective cover-up stories corporations disseminate to the public to hide their crimes is facilitated by another antisocial institution, the advertising industry. This process of deception is also often supported by the mass media, as well as by those politicians who receive huge donations from the antisocial corporations. The cover-up story is constructed to hide the uncontrolled greed, abuse of power, and crimes of a small elite of the very wealthy and the antisocial corporations they manage.23 3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. This is the only character trait of many individuals with APD that does not apply to corporations. In addition to their executives and their Board of Directors, corporations have attorneys assisting them in planning before taking any important action. As a rule, corporations are not impulsive and they do plan ahead; their actions are premeditated. However there is a pathological character trait more typical of obsessive-compulsive and paranoid disorders that does apply to corporations, and that is rigidity. Corporations’ overriding and exclusive goal of making a profit and their persistent refusal to pursue other goals manifests their rigidity, not impulsivity. 4. Aggressiveness. Corporations aggressively pursue their single-minded goal of making a profit for their shareholders. 5. Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others. Yes, corporations do have a reckless disregard for the safety of others, but they do not disregard their own safety. One institution they should but do not fear is the US Congress because Congress has the power to enact legislation to regulate them and block them from persisting in their destructiveness. However, since our representatives and senators are so dependent on the “donations” made to them by corporations, there is little likelihood that they will do anything soon to disrupt their own personal financially rewarding ties to corporations. 6. Consistent irresponsibility. Corporations are repeatedly irresponsible because in their single-minded attempt to make a profit, everybody else

22 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 57. 23 David C. Kortin, When Corporations Rule the World. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2001, p. 22.

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is systematically ignored.24 Corporations draft laws that protect them from all accountability.

CORPORATE IRRESPONSIBILITY – A CASE REPORT As an antisocial system, the corporation does not recognize moral reasons for not harming others. Professor Bakan tells the story of Patricia Anderson’s tragic accident to illustrate the irresponsibility shown by General Motors after an accident she experienced in one of its cars. Mrs. Anderson was driving home from midnight mass on Christmas Day, 1993, and her four children were in the backseat of their 1979 Chevrolet Malibu car. Suddenly, the Malibu was rear-ended by another car driven by a drunk driver. The crash caused her car to burst into flames. Anderson and her children suffered horrible, disfiguring burns. Three of the children were burned over sixty percent of their bodies. One child had to have her badly damaged hand amputated. Mrs. Anderson won a lawsuit against GM. Evidence was presented to prove that the fuel tank had been placed behind the axle and too close to the rear bumper in order to economize, to make more profits, and in cold disregard of public safety. GM had for years been aware of this dangerous design defect, and over a long period many accidents had occurred in which the exposed fuel tank had burst into flames and killed or injured a shocking number of people. One of its engineers had calculated that if GM had made the required structural changes to ensure that the fuel tanks would not explode in crashes, it would cost $8.50 per automobile. The engineer also estimated that there would be 500 fuel-fed fire fatalities each year in GM vehicles. About 500 lives could be saved each year if GM spent $8.50 per car for changes in the design to prevent fuel-tank explosions. GM decided to put profit before saving those 500 lives each year and continued manufacturing the same defective automobile. The jury found GM’s behavior morally reprehensible because it had placed profits above public safety.25 7. Lack of remorse. Corporations lack remorse for their destructive, even criminal, behavior, and they don’t give a damn for anything or anybody except making more money.

CHARACTERISTICS OF APD — SUMMARY A diagnosis of APD is made if an individual has three or more of the seven characteristics described above. My study of corporations indicates corporations manifest six of the seven characteristics. If any individual had six of the 24 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 57. 25 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 63.

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seven characteristics, he most probably would be considered a very dangerous and disturbed person. In Chapters 4 and 5, I asserted that the prison system does more harm to people than it does good. However because of their diversity I am not able to make such a global judgment about corporations. Some corporations do more harm than good and some do not. Clearly, many large US and international corporations do cause extensive harm to people and/or to the environment.

CRIMES OF THE POOR AND CRIMES OF THE RICH — A COMPARISON In this section my aim is to compare and contrast the crimes of very rich and the corporations with the crimes of the poor, the uneducated, and the non-white. Many lower-class people are caught and punished for their crimes, but few of the rich are either apprehended or punished. The crimes of corporations and the very rich most often bring them more wealth and power, whereas the crimes of the poor often lead to their lengthy brutalizing punishment by incarceration. Only a small number of US citizens are victims of the crimes of those who make up what is called the lower socioeconomic class. With some exceptions — such as homicide — most of the damage done to other people by these offenders is temporary and reparable. In contrast, the crimes of the antisocial corporations (and the very rich who manage them) affect many people, sometimes whole nations, in an adverse, harmful way, and most often they do so for an extended period of time. Much of the damage done by the large corporations and the very rich affects the whole country, as well as the wider global environment. Roy Anderson, a successful businessman and a corporation executive, calls the corporation “a present day instrument of destruction. . . . the notion that we can take and take and take and take; waste and waste and waste and waste is driving the biosphere to destruction!”26 The punishment for the individual crimes of the poor is usually harsh and often not commensurate with the severity of their crimes. The crimes of the large corporations and the very rich usually go unnoticed or, if they are caught, they merely pay fines. “Let the punishment fit the crime” goes a line from a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera, The Mikado, and it probably derives from an old legal principle. Unfortunately, for many of the individuals incarcerated in the last thirty-five years, this principle has been set aside and replaced with increasingly lengthy sentences of ten, twenty, or more years, even for minor or moderately severe crimes. This has been especially true for the length of mandatory sentences and sentences for drug offenses. 26 Bakan, The Corporation, p. 71

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According to George Bernard Shaw, the crimes committed by the upper classes far exceed those of the lower socioeconomic classes. “For the depredations of the criminal are negligibly small compared to the military holocausts and ravaged areas, the civic slums, the hospitals, the cemeteries crowded with the prematurely dead, and the labor markets in which men and women are exposed for sale for purposes honorable and dishonorable.”27 Shaw ends his witty exposé of the wealthy with the following: “The gentleman really believes that he is the creator of national prestige, a defender of the faith, a pillar of society; and with this conviction to strengthen him he is utterly unscrupulous in his misplaced pride and honor, and plays the wholesaler in evil to the criminal’s petty retail enterprises.”28

PUBLIC AWARENESS OF INDIVIDUAL VERSUS CORPORATE CRIMES News of the crimes of individuals is more than amply covered by the mass media; news of corporate crime is usually concealed. The same elements of the mass media that fill the airways and newspapers with lurid stories about violent criminals collude with large corporations and the advertising and public relations firms working for them to actively prevent the public from becoming aware of the crimes of the corporations. Thus there exists today in the US a widespread collective denial and ignorance about the existence and the destructiveness of corporate crime. Our natural environment is in serious trouble in large part due to the irresponsible and destructive actions of large corporations, supported by the repeated failures of the federal government to enforce environmental laws and regulations. The large corporations are cutting trees down faster than they can be replaced by new trees, overgrazing rangelands and converting them into deserts, over-pumping the earth’s aquifers, and draining rivers dry. Soil erosion of our land exceeds the formation of new soil. Fish are being taken from the oceans in numbers exceeding the rate at which they can reproduce. The US is especially guilty of releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than the earth can absorb it; this is creating a greenhouse effect and a gradual rise in the earth’s temperature. The higher temperature is causing the melting of ice at both the North and South Poles. In sum, the crimes of the corporations and the very rich do far more damage to people and to the environment than do the crimes of the poor. The crimes of the poor are widely publicized, and are frequently punished severely by their 27 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, pp. 113–114. 28 Shaw, The Crime of Imprisonment, p. 114.

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brutalizing incarceration. The generally unnoticed yet premeditated crimes of the corporations and the very rich often bring them more money and more power.

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CHAPTER 18. A NONVIOLENT APPROACH RELATING TO OTHERS

TO

COMMUNICATING

AND

Nonviolent communication can be defined by what it is — compassionate, empathic, and sincere — and what it is not — abusive, dominating, inauthentic, manipulative, and punitive. My aim here is to present the application of nonviolent approaches and principles to the ways individuals communicate and relate to each other. Chapter 19 will discuss the nonviolent approach to groups. The sincerity, empathy, and compassion that characterize nonviolent communication mean that is not controlling or directive of others except in those cases where one’s occupation requires being directive and controlling. For example, police officers and military officers in some contexts are required to be directive and controlling. Any effort to dominate, to punish, to shame, or even to change the other person is incompatible with nonviolent communication and most often a violation of the other person’s human rights. Because the way humans communicate with each other is also the way they relate to others, I have used the terms relating and communicating as synonyms. I cannot imagine any kind of relating that is not at once both a verbal or nonverbal type of communication. There are two superficially similar but actually far different types of relating in a nonviolent way. The first involves an imitation of the nonviolent way some group leaders and group members have been able to relate. Those who imitate relating in a nonviolent way do so only temporarily and drop it when it is no longer expedient or congruent with what others are doing. The second nonviolent way 215


of relating has different characteristics because it stems from an abiding belief in being nonviolent and not merely appearing to be nonviolent. When nonviolent methods and approaches are used in groups, some group members initiate the nonviolent example set by leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Group pressures and an identification with the leader form an important dynamic in inducing group members to comply with or imitate the group’s nonviolent principles. However, the imitative nonviolent behavior may dissolve when the leader is no longer available. For example, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, some African Americans became impatient with the nonviolent approach and began acting out in violent ways against the government and others. Racial riots broke out in large cities and for a time the nonviolent program for obtaining equal rights for African Americans was blocked. Consequently, non-black citizens became fearful of the rebellious blacks and many stopped supporting the civil rights movement. Similarly, in India the Indian people were in the main remarkably nonviolent and cooperative with Gandhi’s leadership in gaining independence from England. Through his example and moral leadership the people of India, for the most part, constrained their antipathy toward their Muslim neighbors. After Gandhi’s death, many people regressed to their old ways. Conflicts between the castes and between Hindus and Muslims were reignited. The nonviolent movement faltered and never regained the effectiveness it once had when it was led by Gandhi. Late in his career, Gandhi recognized that many of his countrymen who had followed him and supported his programs for India’s independence did so for superficial and temporary reasons. They had not actually made lasting changes in their way of life or in their beliefs. They followed Gandhi not because they believed and followed a nonviolent approach in their daily lives but because it was the expedient and popular thing to do when Gandhi was leading them. In other words, they were followers who behaved in a nonviolent way, but in an imitative manner. Gandhi sadly recognized that many of his followers were what the American Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine disdainfully called “summertime soldiers” — citizens who would serve their country in the summer but not in harder winter weather. Being a nonviolent person means being committed to nonviolence in all seasons and all situations. Gandhi came to understand that an internal transformation or personality change was needed for many people if they were to adopt nonviolence as an individual ethic, followed in bad as well as in good times.

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Chapter 18. A Nonviolent Approach to Communicating and Relating to Others

NONVIOLENCE AS A WAY OF LIFE Nonviolence is more than a philosophy, a belief, or a method, although it includes all of these. Nonviolence is a way of life, or, more accurately, a way of living a life. Nonviolence is both the goal and the means used to attain the goal. The way is the goal. Moral goals cannot be reached by violent (immoral) means; and the foundations of nonviolence are moral and spiritual. Compassion and nonviolence are the core values of Jesus as well as of Gandhi and other great spiritual leaders, including Buddha, Martin Luther King, Leo Tolstoy, and Nelson Mandela. A nonviolent and nonpunitive mode of relating to others is as much a message from one’s heart as it is from one’s mind (and often more so). The nonviolent mode of being and becoming Gandhi practiced has a transparent character. “A nonviolent mode of becoming does not have anything to hide; on the contrary, it strives to reveal its own substance as completely as possible,” as Dr. Catalin Mamali has written.1 Dr. Mamali continues: “Nonviolence was conceived and practiced by Gandhi in a holistic mode. It includes thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, and it embraces all types of relationships from the interpersonal to macrosocial and transpersonal levels.”2

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION — UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS

AND

EXPRESSING

Skill in nonviolent communication includes the development of the capacity for expressing one’s own emotions and for understanding another person’s emotional communications. Unfortunately, too many Americans have poorly developed skills for expressing their own feelings or for understanding the emotions of others. All human spoken communication simultaneously includes both verbal and nonverbal aspects; emotions are expressed mainly by nonverbal communication, such as gestures, tone of voice, facial expression, and so on. Like the psychologist Dr. Marshall Rosenberg,3 I went through more than twenty years of American schools without anyone ever asking me how I felt. In American schools, at all levels, emotions are often not considered important, while in some graduate schools such as medical and law school, where intellect and not emotion reigns supreme, the expression of feelings is either subtly or explicitly discouraged. 1 Catalin Mamali, “The Gandhian Experience: Open Questions for Transdisciplinary Research and Social Practice.” Journal of Loss and Trauma 6:115-124, 2001, p. 117. 2 Mamali, “The Gandhian Experience,” p. 117. 3 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 38.

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The inhibition and lack of skill in identifying and expressing feelings that I am describing is particularly common, in professions where the professional code frowns on the open manifestation of emotion. These professions include medicine (except psychiatry), law, engineering, law enforcement, business administration, and officers in the US military forces.4 As any therapist who does family or marital therapy will testify, the inhibition of emotional expression is greater among men than women. One of the most common complaints among American women is that they are married to men who either won’t or can’t express their feelings. The impairment and/or inhibition of an individual’s emotional communication often goes together with deficiencies in the reception and/or understanding of the emotional communications of others.

EMPATHY AND COMPASSION The objective of nonviolent communication is to establish and maintain a relationship based on honesty and empathy.5 Efforts to shame, control, punish, dominate, or manipulate another person are nearly always incompatible with nonviolent relating. Dr. Rosenberg calls his approach “nonviolent communication,” and he uses the term “nonviolence” as Gandhi did — “to refer to our natural state of compassion when violence has subsided from the heart.”6 Dr. Rosenberg recommends establishing an emotional bond to the other — a secure attachment that does not evoke more emotional violence. To reduce violence of any kind, whether physical, verbal, nonverbal, punitive, or emotional, what the world needs is more compassion, with relations between humans distinguished by a mutual giving and receiving from the heart.7 Empathy is a respectful understanding of what the other is experiencing. Empathy calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to the other with our whole being. Empathy is the foundation and condition required for any kind of compassionate and constructive relating to others. We need to stay with empathy, allowing the other to fully express himself or herself, before we turn our attention to giving advice, or to providing solutions to requests for relief.8 Here are some examples of common obstacles that can prevent individuals from communicating empathically with other persons. Assume in the following 4 I make an exception of psychiatry but, to be truthful, I probably should omit most psychiatrists who are academicians in medical schools. Their desire to be accepted by the “real doctors” in the other medical specialties has led many of them to muffle their emotions. 5 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 85. 6 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 3. 7 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 2. 8 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, pp. 111–112.

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that the subject has complained about his painful physical symptoms caused by a recent auto accident. The listener may avoid an empathic response by any one or more of the following tactics: 1. Advising: “I think you should . . .” 2. Avoiding affect: “Don’t cry. Don’t feel so bad.” 3. Sympathizing: “You poor thing.” 4. Interrogating: “When was the accident?” 5. Consoling: “The accident was the other guy’s fault.” 6. One-upmanship: “That’s nothing. You should hear about my really bad accident.” 7. Blaming: “You were speeding. It’s your own darn fault.” 8. Explaining: “I think your car wasn’t running well.” In all of the above examples, the listener’s responses demonstrate a lack of empathy with the speaker’s experience, including his painful symptoms and his recent stressful accident. Yet although they show a lack of empathy in a situation where the other person is suffering, nearly all of these interventions might be appropriate in other contexts. Dr. Rosenberg does not encourage people to ignore, squelch, or swallow their anger, “but rather to express the core of our anger fully and wholeheartedly.”9 He urges us not judge or blame others in expressing anger. He writes, “The four steps to expressing anger are 1) stop and breathe, 2) identify our judgmental thoughts, 3) connect with our needs, and 4) express our feelings and unmet needs.”10 Case Vignette Dr. Rosenberg tells of a woman who attended one of his workshops on nonviolent communication who returned to the workshop after a lunch break and announced to him, “Marshall, I went home and tried it. It didn’t work.” Dr. Rosenberg then asked her to describe what happened. She said she had gone home and expressed her feelings and needs to her son just as the workshop had taught her. She reported she had said to her son, “ ‘Look, when I see that you haven’t done the work you said you were going to do, I feel very disappointed. I wanted to be able to come home and find the house in order and your chores completed.’ Then I made a request. I told him I wanted him to clean it up immediately.”11

9 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 115. 10 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 148. 11 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 86.

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Then in answer to Dr. Rosenberg’s request for information on what happened, she replied, “He didn’t do it.” “Then what happened?” Rosenberg asked. The woman replied, “I told him he couldn’t go through life being lazy and irresponsible.”12 Dr. Rosenberg noted that this woman was not yet able to distinguish between expressing requests and making demands. She was still defining the process as successful only if she got her son’s compliance with her “requests.” I agree with Dr. Rosenberg’s conclusion about the mother’s failure to distinguish between making demands and expressing requests. What Rosenberg omits is the controlling and shaming way the mother treats her son. After pressuring him to do the work “immediately,” she again demeans and shames her son by her insulting statements about his being “lazy and irresponsible.” The mother was apparently unaware of how controlling and shaming she had been to her son, and also unaware of the harmful effects of such communications to her son, as well as their effect on her relationship with him.

NONVIOLENT RESPONSES TO THE VIOLENCE OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE Is it possible to respond nonviolently to another person’s abusive communication? Yes, it is possible, but it isn’t easy for most individuals because Americans have not been socialized or trained to respond nonviolently to the emotional abuse of others. Most of the experience and guidance we receive in our society for dealing with emotional violence (verbal abuse) is of three kinds. 1. We learn how to respond to the perpetrator of emotional violence by being emotionally violent to the perpetrator ourselves. 2. We learn how to pass on the pain we receive, caused by the perpetrator of emotional violence, by being emotionally violent to others. The victim of emotional violence learns to displace his anger from the abuser to someone else. For example, an employee who has been emotionally abused by his boss at the office may displace his anger, so that when he goes home he may become emotionally abusive to his spouse. 3. We learn to passively endure emotional violence without complaint and without defending ourselves against it. All three of the above tactics are counterproductive and they tend to only make matters worse.13 Note, also, that Items 1 and 2 above describe examples of the way cycles of violence are perpetuated. Emotional violence (abuse) can be 12 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 87. 13 Elgin, Success With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, p. 21.

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transmitted from person to person, and from group to group, in the formation of repetitive cycles of abusive communications. Clinical Vignette Mrs. M., her four siblings, and her mother were, throughout Mrs. M.’s childhood, victims of the father’s physical abuse (spanking) and emotional abuse. The latter included expressions of contempt, denigration, and other tactics designed to inculcate humiliation and shame in those he attacked. As is too often the case, Mrs. M. married a man who was like her father inasmuch as he was emotionally abusive to her and to their children. As a child, Mrs. M. had learned to placate and please her father as a defense to protect herself from his abusiveness. Early in her psychoanalytic treatment she denied her husband’s emotional abusiveness, and over a year passed before she was ready to affirm and discuss how painfully humiliated she felt when she was a victim of his attacks. She was then faced with a painful dilemma: either she could fight back by insulting and demeaning him as he had done to her, or she could continue to say nothing and simply submit to the abuse. The way she most frequently contended with his abusiveness was to respond in the same way she had to her father — by being silent and submissive. Eventually she began to fight back, responding in kind to what he had done to her. This caused an escalation of verbal violence and discord in the marriage to a degree that both parties considered divorce. When she fought back by making demeaning insults to her husband, she was inducing shame in him in a manner very similar to what he had done to her. I interpreted her “identification with the aggressor” by telling her that she was now inculcating shame in him as he had previously done to her. She was faced with a painful either–or puzzle since she believed she should not regress back to her old way of being submissive and simply enduring his abuse. At the same time she began to recognize that fighting back by being as abusive as he was only escalated the violence and threatened the very existence of their marriage. With the help of her analysis, she gradually devised a middle way between fight and flight, a nonviolent way in which she could protect herself and also speak truthfully about what was going on, but without shaming her husband. The nonviolent approach worked for her because it helped her to protect herself and at the same time preserve her autonomy and her marriage.

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TWO NONVIOLENT STRATEGIES Two experts on human communication have devised ways of responding to the emotional abuse of others. In what follows my aim is to discuss and compare their important contributions to our understanding about using nonviolent strategies for dealing with violent communication. Dr. Rosenberg describes how nonviolent communication can defuse danger and be an effective way of dealing with another person’s abusive communications.14 Professor of linguistics Suzette Elgin recommends the use of the “computer” mode of communication to those persons who feel threatened by another person’s abusiveness.15 The “computer” (or Type C) mode of communication consists of speaking in generalities and abstractions and reducing to a minimum any body movements or expressions of emotion. The computer mode is identical to what the psychoanalyst Robert Langs and I call the Type C mode of communication.16 In a previous publication I discussed how and why patients unconsciously used the Type C mode for defensive purposes when they wanted to avoid meaningful emotional communication with their psychotherapist.17 Lengthy or repeated use of the Type C mode tends to turn off and turn away other persons. In addition, the repeated and extensive use of the Type C mode may evoke feelings of frustration, shame, and anger in the listener. See Chapter 7 for a discussion of how the repetitive use of the Type C mode by prison guards has a damaging effect in their interactions with prisoners. What follows summarizes some important differences between Dr. Rosenberg’s compassionate (nonviolent) communication and Dr. Elgin’s computer (Type C) mode. The computer mode of relating tends to sever or attenuate contact with the listener, whereas nonviolent (compassionate) communication tends to foster a closer attachment. Compassionate communication is enlivening; the computer mode of communication is deadening, a turn-off. Compassionate communication communicates caring for the other, whereas the computer mode communicates coldness or indifference. Compassionate communication is authentic and spontaneous; the computer mode is contrived and conceals the speaker’s true feelings. Compassionate communication is empathic to the other person; the computer mode is not empathic. Compassionate communication

14 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, pp. 124–126. 15 Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense, p. 13. 16 Robert Langs, The Listening Process. New York: Jason Aronson, 1978; and Dorpat, “The Type C Mode of Communication.” 17 Dorpat, “The Type C Mode of Communication,” pp. 49–51.

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tends to invite further interaction, whereas the computer mode is apt to break off any dialogue. In an article on the Type C mode, I described individuals who in emergency and extremely stressful states, such as being tortured, had some success in using the Type C mode as a means of self-protection.18 My clinical investigation of the Type C mode leads me to agree with Professor Elgin’s claim that the computer mode can offer some protection to someone in an emergency or highly stressful situation. However, it does have the serious drawback of breaking off any viable communication with the other person. The following vignette from Dr. Rosenberg’s book provides a heart-warming example of the way compassionate communication can be used to defuse danger and bypass violence. The drug detoxification center employee described in the following vignette had been trained in the use of nonviolent communication in a workshop conducted by Dr. Rosenberg. Vignette A young woman used empathy to prevent violence while working on a night shift at a drug detoxification center in Toronto. A man who obviously had been taking drugs walked in off the street and demanded a room. The young lady started to explain to him that all the rooms had been filled for the night. Just as she was about to hand the man the address of another detox center, he threw her to the ground. “The next thing I knew, he was sitting across my chest holding a knife to my throat and shouting, “You bitch, don’t lie to me. You do too have a room!”19 The young woman took a deep breath and said, “It sounds like you’re really angry and you want to be given a room.” He yelled back, “I may be an addict, but by God, I deserve respect. I’m tired of nobody giving me respect. My parents don’t give me respect. I’m gonna get respect!” The young woman continued to focus on his feelings and needs and asked, “Are you fed up, not getting the respect you want?”20 Dr. Rosenberg asked the detox center worker, “How long did this go on?” She replied, “Oh, about another thirty-five minutes.” Rosenberg said, “That must have been terrifying.” The young woman responded, “No, not after the first couple of interchanges, because then something else we’d learned here became important. When I concentrated on listening for his feelings and needs, I stopped seeing him as a monster. I could see, just as you’d said, how people who seem like monsters are 18 Dorpat, “The Type C Mode of Communication” pp. 47–54. 19 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 125. 20 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 125.

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simply human beings whose language and behavior sometimes keep us from seeing their humanness. The more I was able to focus my attention on his feelings and needs, the more I saw him as a person full of despair whose needs weren’t being met. I became confident that if I held my attention there, I wouldn’t be hurt. After he’d received the empathy he needed, he got off me, put the knife away, and I helped him find a room at another center.”21 The above story describes how the detox center worker’s “compassionate communication” made for a dramatic transformation in both parties. The man put his knife away and stopped threatening the detox center worker; she changed from seeing the man as a monster to viewing him as a man full of despair whose needs weren’t being met.

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENT APPROACHES FOR PREVENTING VIOLENCE Angie O’Gorman and Maggie Pharris tell an amazing story of how an individual can effectively respond to a dangerous situation by relying on the power of nonviolence.22 Vignette Angie O’Gorman was living alone in a Catholic Worker House that had been temporarily shut down for repairs. One night she was abruptly awakened to the spectacle of a large man kicking in her bedroom door, yelling something, and walking toward her bed. Instead of cowering in fear or screaming ineffectually, O’Gorman had the sudden insight that both she and the intruder shared a dilemma; either they both would suffer or they could both go through the situation safely. Angie describes it as a moment of grace when she spoke to the man who came crashing into her home and said, “What time is it?” Amazingly this simple question elicited a human response from the man who had invaded Angie O’Gorman’s room; he looked at his watch and said it was 3:15. Angie looked at her clock and pointed out to the man that her clock said 3:30. In this most precarious and risky situation, she and the uninvited guest to her room had a discussion about how his timepiece might be wrong. A human link was established, and both began to speak with the other in a respectful way. O’Gorman said later, “I never felt so vulnerable in my life, but I knew that if I came out with fear and anger, it was going to explode.” Expressions of fear and/or anger most commonly evoke similar responses of fear and/or anger. O’Gorman’s question 21 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, pp. 125–126. Italics are mine. 22 Angie O’Gorman and Maggie Pharris, Nonviolent Response to Personal Assault. Videotape directed by Greg St. James and produced by Bill and Mary Carry (40 minutes). Erie, PA: Pax Christie USA, 1986.

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about the time introduced enough surprise to give the intruder time to pause, and this pause provided an opportunity for him to redirect his actions. Angie O’Gorman asked the man to tell her about himself. They talked, and gradually the threat of impending violence diminished. When she found out that the man was homeless and did not have a place to stay, she invited him to spend the night on the couch downstairs in the Catholic Worker House. This vignette and the other preceding narratives illustrate how nonviolent and empathic approaches can defuse abusive, even life-threatening, situations with others who are abusive or threatening violence. This chapter’s vignettes express the way the principles of nonviolent communication can be effectual between individuals. The next chapter discusses how these principles can be used in group situations.

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CHAPTER 19. ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NONVIOLENT APPROACHES IN GROUPS This chapter presents an overview of certain noteworthy nonviolent group movements that took place during in the twentieth century. My aim is to demonstrate that nonviolent group action is a preferred way to move toward conflict resolution, among large groups of people (even nations) as well as in interpersonal relationships. In contending with oppression or social conflict, nonviolent approaches are generally both more humane and more effective than the use of punishment or other violent methods. Although nonviolence has been used effectively for centuries, it was not developed into a planned social movement complete with explicit strategies and tactics until men such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. became the spiritual leaders of amazingly effective mass movements of liberation. Nonviolent approaches do work! If one combines the number of people in all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in the last century, the figures reach almost three billion people, or sixty-four percent of humanity!1 In 1986, theologian Walter Wink went to South Africa both to participate in and to study the nonviolent actions taken to overthrow apartheid. Although in South Africa nonviolent methods were at first denounced as ineffectual, Wink was surprised to “discover a remarkable variety of effective nonviolent actions that many people there were employing in perhaps the longest grass-roots eruption of diverse nonviolent strategies in a single struggle in human history.”2 1 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 117. 2 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 8.

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Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela did not teach nonresistance, but instead taught the use of nonviolence as a means of resistance to and overcoming of one’s persecutors.3 As Wink states, “Nonviolence is not idealistic or sentimental . . . it does not coddle or cajole aggressors but moves against perceived injustice proactively with the same alacrity as the most hawkish militarist.”4 The nonviolent principles advanced by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others are not a prescription for passivity, but rather nonviolent forms of resistance that employ shock tactics to expose the injustice of domination. These leaders encourage us to reach for a “third way” between passivity and violence to transform the relationships of oppression and punishment that dehumanize both the victim and the offender. “This nonviolent ‘third way’ presents a way of fighting evil with all one’s power without being transformed into the very evil we fight. It is a way of not becoming what we hate.”5 Nonviolence is not a program through which one group of people acts to seize power from another group. Rather, according to Gandhi it is a program for transforming relationships, leading toward a peaceful transfer of power.6 Gandhi said he was strongly influenced by Christianity, Confucius, Islam, Socrates, and other ancient sources. For Gandhi, “Truth is inseparable from nonviolence, and the method of achieving and clinging to truth is nonviolence.”7 The foundation of Gandhi’s technique of social action is nonviolence, “the technique of conducting social relations, characterized by constructive, peaceful attitudes and infused with the determination to enlarge areas of agreement and to achieve resolution by persuasion.”8 For him, nonviolence was foremost and most importantly a moral and spiritual requirement. Gandhi’s method of resolving conflict by nonviolent actions had several stages. The first stage was characterized by persuasion through reason. If persuasion did not work, he and his followers would then begin the use of nonviolent pressures with such tactics as strikes, noncooperation, and peaceful civil disobedience.9

3 Wink, The Powers That Be, pp. 146–147. 4 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 121. 5 Walter Wink, “Neither Passivity nor Violence,” pp. 102–125. In Willard M. Swartley, ed., The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament. Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1992, p. 117. 6 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 114. 7 Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict. New rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 193. 8 Bondurant, Conquest of Violence, p. 193. 9 Bondurant, Conquest of Violence, p. 21.

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Gandhi’s method forbad verbal and emotional violence as well as physical violence. In 1930, he laid down a code of discipline for volunteers; the major principles included: 1. “Harbor no anger but suffer the anger of the opponent. Refuse to return the assaults of the opponent.” 2. “Do not submit to any order given in anger . . .” 3. “Refrain from insults and swearing.” 4. “Protect opponents from insult or attack, even at the risk of life.”10 The greatest abuses committed by humans against other humans have stemmed from mass movements in which the “foot-soldiers” have been persuaded or provoked to fight in order, ostensibly, to destroy “evil.” Such movements may destroy another person or group, but principally they cause great destruction and dehumanize all who participate. Consider the Crusades. Those who joined the different crusades were told they were fighting against evil. (Those who actually funded and orchestrated the Crusades, like any other war, had other objectives in mind.) By their wanton use of violence, those who fought were de-humanized by the experience. The great spiritual leaders propose a nonviolent way of opposing unjust domination and other kinds of abuse without its adherents becoming abusive and de-humanized in the process.11 Authors Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall present vivid examples of the ways groups of people have been empowered through the planned, strategic use of nonviolent action, depriving their oppressors of political control. They reveal how the use of nonviolent resistance can create the power to overcome the most extreme repression of human rights and even the most tyrannical rulers.12 The nonviolent legacy of the twentieth century is embedded in the histories of many nations, but many of the values and strategies at the core of the nonviolent social movements had their beginnings in Mohandas Gandhi, who felt the pains of racism and bigotry both in his home country, India, and in South Africa early in the twentieth century. “Before the century ended, the conflict that Gandhi began to fight in South Africa before he rallied to his own country’s cause was finally won for all people of color in that land — and was won through strikes, boycotts, and other methods of nonviolent resistance he had pioneered.”13 Nonviolent movements in the twentieth century led to the independence of India, civil rights for South Africans and for African Americans. Ackerman and 10 Bondurant, Conquest of Violence, p. 35. 11 Wink, The Powers That Be, p. 69. 12 Ackerman and DuVall, A Force More Powerful. 13 Ackerman and DuVall, A Force More Powerful, p. 368.

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DuVall show that even tyrannical regimes that had no compunction about destroying their opponents and denying them the right to speak their minds have been overthrown. “Strategic nonviolent action is not about being nice to your oppressor, much less having to rely on his niceness. It’s about dissolving the foundations of his power and forcing him out.”14 In World War II, the Danish people gradually developed a broad, popular, and nonviolent resistance to their German occupiers and managed to impose substantial costs on the Nazi regime for its decision to occupy and rule their country. Another example from World War II is the nonviolent resistance of the Rosenstrasse Wives in Berlin, in February and March 1943. Responding to the internment of their Jewish husbands, hundreds of the non-Jewish wives and other supportive civilians started a daily sit-in in front of the Nazi government building at Rosenstrasse 2-4 in Berlin where their husbands had initially been taken. The Nazi SS soldiers shot over their heads and tried to frighten off the women civilians, but the wives kept coming, in increasing numbers. The Nazis were faced with a dilemma. If they used brutal measures to stop the women, surely they would inflame other Berliners. The Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels decided it was easier to give them their husbands back. Seventeen hundred Jewish husbands were transported back from the concentration camps to Berlin and set free to rejoin their wives. Ackerman and DuVall write, “The Nazis’ will to violence was notorious. But superiority of military force did not make them invulnerable; they were frightened of protest at the seat of their power, and the potential cost of suppressing it with violence — while trifling in blood and time — was politically too high to pay. So . . . they [were], in that place and at that moment, impotent.”15 The efficacy of nonviolent movements depends on how scrupulous they are able to be in refraining from using any kind of physical or emotional violence against their oppressors. The nonviolent movement in the US for the civil rights of blacks in the South was severely damaged by the violence that broke out after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The violence first perpetrated by some blacks (indeed, some have claimed they were provocateurs instigated by those who wished to undermine the movement) against the government, and then the violent reprisals of law enforcement officers, put a halt to the success of the previously nonviolent movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Another example of an initially successful nonviolent movement against an oppressive leader being stalled by violent insurgents took place in Chile. The 14 Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, “With Weapons of the Will.” Sojourner’s Magazine 31:20– 23, 2002, p. 23. 15 Ackerman and DuVall, A Force More Powerful, p. 239.

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opposition to General Pinochet included many people whose methods were nonviolent as well as some on the far left who, throughout the mid-1980s, espoused violent insurrection. The violent actions of those groups (like the Black Panthers, they too may have been unwittingly incited in order to discredit the movement) only allowed Pinochet to exert more power to strengthen his hand, and impeded the constructive efforts of the nonviolent dissidents. Yet by sustaining and not overplaying public protest, by not using violence that would heighten repression, and by inspiring the help of outside institutions and governments, this inchoate but resilient movement became the lever that dislodged the ruler.16 Ultimately, the nonviolent approach won the support of the Chilean people and eventually this resulted in Pinochet’s downfall. The methods used included a nationwide slowdown followed, in Santiago, by a nighttime citywide banging of pots and pans. Mammoth monthly protests also helped to undermine Pinochet’s tyranny and he was finally forced to step down.

NONVIOLENCE VERSUS THE MYTH OF REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE Those who uphold the idea that punishment and other types of violence are effective will do so, I suspect, because they are the unwilling victims of America’s most popular and powerful religion, namely what Walter Wink calls the “myth of redemptive violence.” Those who believe this irrational but extremely appealing myth hold that by fighting and destroying evil and evildoers, evil will be rooted out and they will be redeemed. What they do not understand is that by using violence to fight abuse and aggression, they themselves become abusive and aggressive. To break this seemingly perpetual cycle of violence in our individual lives, in our interpersonal relations, and in our country’s relations with others, we must passionately follow nonviolence as a way of life. The philosopher Hannah Arendt and other thoughtful persons have successfully refuted the idea that the attainment of power is possible only through the use of violence. Arendt argued that violence is incapable of creating power — that it “does not promote causes, neither history nor revolution, neither progress nor reaction.”17 Nonviolent methods have been shown to work in groups of all sizes for many centuries. While the twentieth century was marked by the most destructive wars in history, it was also a time that saw the repeated successful use of nonviolent methods for the liberation of large groups of oppressed people. Since Gandhi’s time, we have seen other great spiritual leaders who have allowed us to learn and 16 Ackerman and DuVall, A Force More Powerful, p. 302. 17 Hannah Arendt, “On Violence.” In Crises of the Republic. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972, pp. 155, 176.

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understand that nonviolent methods and approaches are effective in face to face individual relationships as well as in very large groups, and even whole nations.

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CHAPTER 20. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE — A NEW FORM OF NONPUNITIVE JUSTICE In place of the imposition of justice based on punishment, in recent decades a new form of nonpunitive justice has been developed. Called restorative justice, it is grounded in spiritual traditions that believe in the potential of human beings to heal. These new approaches offer more promise and hope to both victims and victimizers than the punitive methods of the criminal justice system in the United States. Restorative justice models hold people accountable for their actions while at the same time assisting offenders to restore self-control and repair their attachments to their community. According to the Australian professor John Braithwaite, a major proponent of restorative approaches, many restorative justice tenets derive from ancient Arab, Buddhist, Confucian, Greek, Roman, and Taoist civilizations.1 The Restorative Justice Movement views crime as fundamentally a violation of people and of interpersonal relationships. Both the victims and the community have been harmed and are in need of restoration and healing. Restorative justice focuses “on the harms of wrongdoing more than the rules that have been broken. . . . show[s] equal concern and commitment to victims and offenders, involving both in the process of justice . . . work[s] toward the restoration of victims, empowering them and responding to their needs as they see them; [and] support[s]

1 John Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic Accounts.” In Michael Tonry, ed., Crime and Justice, A Review of Research, vol. 25, pp. 1–86.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

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offenders while encouraging them to understand, accept and carry out their obligations.”2 Restorative justice is a process of bringing together the individuals who have been affected by an offense or crime and helping them to agree on how to repair the harm done by the offender. “The purpose is to restore victims, restore offenders, and restore communities in a way that all stakeholders can agree is just.”3 One overriding value of restorative justice is its reluctance to resort to punishment. Punishment adds to the amount of hurt and tends to renew the cycle of violence. Restorative justice has a more constructive and humane attitude because it is concerned with the healing of individuals (both victims and offenders) and groups rather than with causing more pain and violence. Several restorative justice systems have been developed in the recent past to deal with offenders in a nonviolent manner. These approaches aim to bring healing to offenders and victims, but also to the community of which they are a part. A notable example is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created in 1995 to contend with apartheid-related crimes in South Africa. Archbishop Desmond Tutu chaired the Truth Commission, which was founded on the principle that “Reconciliation depends on forgiveness and . . . forgiveness can only take place if gross violations of human rights are fully disclosed.”4 Although some victims’ families objected to the exchange of truth for amnesty for the offenders, the majority of black South Africans supported the reconciliation process. The victims and families had the right to ask for reparations. Some victims had the wages of the perpetrators garnished to support their (victims’) families. Others asked for and received honest answers about what happened, an apology, or the mounting of a gravestone. The restorative justice approach requires that the perpetrators tell the truth about the crimes and take responsibility for them. The meetings conducted by the commission proved to be healing for both the perpetrators of racial violence and their victims. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to peace in our time. At the heart of restorative justice is the idea of restoring offenders, victims, and communities. All those individuals, such as offenders and victims as well as their friends and relatives who have a stake in the particular offense, come together to discuss and resolve the effects of the offense and its implications. 2 Howard Zehr and Harold Mika, “Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice.” Contemporary Justice Review 1:47–55, 1988. 3 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized.” 4 David Goodman, “Why Killers Should Go Free: Lessons from South Africa.” Washington Quarterly 22:172, 1999.

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In contrast to today’s criminal justice system, the restorative justice approaches break the cycle of violence rather than renew it through punishing the offender. Restorative Justice is spiritual in the sense defined by the Dalai Lama in his book, Ethics for the New Millennium. He defines spirituality as concerned with those qualities of the human spirit “such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony — which brings . . . happiness and peace to self and others.”5 Much of the restorative justice literature offers a damning critique of the criminal justice system and promotes restorative justice as an effective and humane alternative. Others are also active in promoting restorative justice as a way to transform the current criminal justice system and its misguided emphasis on punishment. Although restorative justice is almost unknown in the United States, various restorative justice programs have been successfully functioning in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand for some time. New Zealand has had a restorative justice system for juvenile offenders for over ten years. There, Family Group conferences deal with young offenders (such as those guilty of physical or sexual abuse).6 Restorative justice is now a global social movement advocating transformation of the criminal justice systems of many countries.7 The governments of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have played important roles in developing new restorative justice approaches to crime and to victims, as well as in treatment of offenders. Unlike the current criminal justice systems in many Western counties, the restorative justice approach is nonviolent and nonpunitive. Non-domination is another core value in restorative justice. “Healing relationships, as opposed to balancing hurt with hurt, is one core value of restorative justice. So is community deliberation, putting the problem in the center of the circle rather than putting the criminal at the center of the criminal justice system.”8 According to Professor Braithwaite, whatever a retributive system — like that found in our present criminal justice system — “prescribes as the right punishment for the criminal will usually be the wrong solution to the problems.”9

5 Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999. 6 Allison Morris, “Children and Family Violence: Restorative Messages from New Zealand,” pp. 89–107. In Heather Strang and John Braithwaite, eds., Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 7 John Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice.” Saskatchewan Law Review 63:185– 194, 2000. 8 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” pp. 185–186. 9 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” pp. 185–186.

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SOCIAL INJUSTICE Braithwaite makes a powerful and convincing argument that restorative justice can reduce social injustice. “The most important way restorative justice may be able to reduce social injustice involves reducing the impact of imprisonment as a cause of the unequal burdens of unemployment, debt with extortionate interest burdens, suicide, rape, AIDS, Hepatitis C, and potentially most important, the epidemic of multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis.”10 The healing of both victims and offenders accruing from restorative justice approaches has progressive rather than regressive implications for social justice. Conversely, a retributive justice system that responds to the hurt of one side by inflicting hurt on the other side is regressive in its destructive impact. It adds to the hurt in the world in a way in which those burdens of hurt fall more heavily on the poor. This is more pointedly true when a vicious spiral is triggered by retributive values — when criminals want to hurt victims again and victims want to hurt criminals back — as hurt endlessly begets more hurt. Whereas the poor are the greatest losers from our present propensity to institutionalize hurt begetting hurt, it could be that the poor will be the greatest beneficiaries of a world where help begets help and grace begets grace.”11 Restorative justice is both a social movement with some political clout and a new delivery mechanism for effective crime-prevention programs. Restorative justice is a process of bringing together all the stakeholders (offenders, victims, communities) in pursuit of a justice that heals the hurt of crime, instead of responding to the hurt of the victim by using punishment to hurt the offender.12 Restorative justice became a global social movement in the later years of the twentieth century. This came about as a result of people learning, from indigenous practices of restorative justice, about the ways in which the individualistic and punitive Western approaches to criminal justice were impoverished.13

HOW RESTORATIVE JUSTICE WORKS Restorative justice strategies derive in part from the justice traditions of the New Zealand Maori and North American (mainly Canadian) native peoples. Among these groups, members of two communities (one supporting the offender and another supporting the victim, with some individuals supporting both) would meet together as one community in a circle. This gave rise to the name “healing circle” for the North American variants of restorative justice and the 10 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” p. 102 11 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” p. 194 12 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1729. 13 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1743.

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term “conferences” for the southern hemisphere variants. In both the Maori and North American traditions, the supporters in the circle were not limited to siblings and parents. All concerned community members would attend, including close and distant relatives, friends, teachers, and others. Most often the number in the circle would be ten or less, though sometimes as many as thirty people would join the circle. Typically, in a circle (or conference) the effects of the crime will be discussed first. Who has suffered as a result of the crime: the victim, the families of the victim, or the offender? Then the circle prepares a plan of actions to heal that suffering. Frequently, the plan will include ways of making amends to the victim and/or the community. The plan may also include ways to include apology, forgiveness, and ways of helping victims to feel safer, as well as ways of preventing a recurrence of the crime. Note the similarity between the approaches and methods used by these indigenous peoples and the ways the Truth and Reconciliation meetings that have been recently conducted in South Africa. The outcome of the research at the Hollow Water community in Canada has important implications for both crime prevention and crime detection. Healing circles in the Manitoba Canada First Nation Hollow Water community began to deal with what was widely considered an epidemic of alcohol abuse. As the citizens sat in their circles discussing the problems of different individuals, they gradually realized that there was a deeper underlying problem: they were living in a community that was denying the widespread sexual abuse of children. They eventually discovered that a majority of Hollow Water citizens were at some time victims of child sexual abuse. Forty-eight adults out of a community of six hundred admitted responsibility for sexually abusing children, forty-six as a result of their participation in healing circles and two as a result of being referred to a court of law for failing to do so. Professor Braithwaite concludes, “This innovative Canadian work shows that restorative justice has potential as a tool for advancing social justice for women and children who suffer at the hands of violent men.”14

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACHES There is overwhelming evidence, on the part of offenders, victims, and the community, as well as the police, that the participants’ satisfaction with restorative justice practices is extremely high, typically ninety to ninety-five percent approval.15 This result also holds true for cases randomly assigned to restorative 14 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” p. 191 15 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1744.

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justice conferences rather than the traditional criminal justice courts; here, the overall satisfaction of the restorative justice meetings was significantly higher than in criminal court cases.16 An outstanding example of the success of the restorative justice approach is the entire New Zealand youth justice system, which was reorganized according to the restorative justice approach in 1989. This resulted in an immense reduction in court appearances, custodial sentences, and recidivism by young offenders. The key concept of the new youth justice system is the transfer of power from the state to the “Family Group Conference.” The Family Group Conference is convened by a state official, an employee of the Social Work Department, who chairs the conference. A large group of interested parties attends the conference, which includes the young person who has committed the crime and members of his or her family, who must also attend. The family can ask for the presence of anyone else they feel would be helpful, such as someone who works in a drug-abuse institution. Also present is the victim, accompanied by some family members or supporters, and a police officer who specializes in work with young people. Sometimes a social worker may attend; however, judges never attend these conferences. Usually between six and twelve people attend, but occasionally as many as twenty may participate. The goal of the conference is to reach a unanimous agreement on what the sentence for the young person should be. Three parties must come to an agreement: they include the victim, the wrongdoer, and the police officer. When the conference does not reach a unanimous agreement, the matter is referred back to a judge in the court. Usually, the conference draws up a plan that includes an apology to the victim and restitution to the victim — whether this may be money to be paid or work to be done for the community.17 The evidence of citizen satisfaction provides the basis for hope for the transformation of the criminal justice system from a predominantly punitive approach to a healing approach. In Professor Braithwaite’s hometown of Canberra, Australia, over ten thousand citizens have attended restorative justice conferences. Some of the most conservative governments in the world, such as those in New Zealand and Singapore, have become supportive of restorative justice. Restorative justice has broad appeal because of its emphasis on holding offenders responsible for their actions, providing a more central place in the system for victims’ choices and victims’ rights, strengthening families through the “family group conferences,” and, in New Zealand, substantial savings in costs owing to 16 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1744. 17 Stern, A Sin Against the Future, pp. 328–329.

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the smaller number of beds in juvenile institutions.18 Unfortunately, restorative justice approaches have made little headway in what Professor Braithwaite calls “punitive societies like the United States.”19 Another important difference between the traditional punitive approach of America’s criminal justice system and the restorative justice programs is the emphasis placed on prevention by the restorative justice approach. Today’s criminal justice system in the United States is first oriented to detecting wrongdoers, and then to punishing them; there is little or no attention to the prevention of crime. Restorative justice programs can prevent crimes. Braithwaite writes, “You need to motivate crime prevention to get it to work. The emotion of the circle’s rituals of remorse — apology — forgiveness, the tears of disappointed and relieved mums and dads, create an environment where motivation to do difficult things becomes possible.”20

CONCLUDING REMARKS Professor John Braithwaite has discussed the empirical evidence derived from research studies comparing the restorative justice approach with the punitive approach of the traditional criminal justice system; what follows summarizes the conclusions of this research. Restorative justice approaches have been shown to deter crime more effectively than the punitive approaches of the criminal justice system based on deterrence theory.21 Restorative justice models incapacitate criminals better than the criminal justice system practices grounded in the theory of selective incapacitation.22 Restorative justice methods rehabilitate criminals better than criminal justice system practices grounded in the welfare model.23 Finally, restorative justice practices cost less and are more cost-effective than current criminal justice systems.24

18 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1745. 19 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1745. 20 Braithwaite, “A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized,” p. 1748. 21 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic 56–65. 22 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic 65–67. 23 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic 67–69. 24 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic 70–72.

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Accounts,” pp. Accounts,” pp. Accounts,” pp. Accounts,” pp.

CHAPTER 21. DOMESTIC ABUSE — A COMPARISON BETWEEN RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACHES

THE

In a recent provocative and original book, Professor Linda Mills challenges the prevailing approach the criminal justice system has taken toward the problem of domestic abuse, as well as the mainstream feminist response.1 Incarcerating men who beat their partners at one point seemed like a major improvement over the days when men could abuse women with impunity and women fearing further abuse could expect no help from authorities. In the last decades of the twentieth century, laws were enacted in most states concerning the arrest and prosecution, and sometimes the incarceration, of individuals (mainly men) who had been physically abusive to their spouses. Some of these individuals were convicted and then served a short time in jails. The majority of citizens believed the above actions were a great advance over what had taken place prior to about 1975, when those men who abused their souses or partners were neither arrested nor incarcerated. Now comes Linda Mills’s new perspective. Mills doubts that our relatively recent system of requiring the arrest, prosecution, and sometimes the incarceration of spousal abusers actually lessens domestic abuse or helps battered women. She provides persuasive evidence that the criminal justice system may actually be making the problem of domestic violence worse, and describes the ways the current system robs battered women of what little power they do hold.

1 Linda G. Mills, Insult to Injury: Rethinking our Responses to Intimate Abuse. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

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Professor Mills concludes: “At worst, the criminal justice system increases violence against women. At best, it has little or no effect.”2 A feminist herself, Professor Mills disputes the stance of mainline feminists who support today’s monolithic legal approach to domestic violence, an approach that includes the continued advocacy of punishment of the offending male. Mainline feminists assert that one of the accomplishments of the feminist movement in the 1970s and later was to have physical violence against women and children treated as a crime and to provide legal protection to abused women and children.3 Professor Mills recognizes the destructive effects of the punitive and rigid ways domestic abuse is handled by the criminal justice system. I agree with her conclusion that the vast majority of abusers do not need to be incarcerated. Many of them, along with their abused wives or partners, can be much more effectively helped by nonpunitive treatment measures. The closing chapters of her challenging book describe nonviolent and nonpunitive approaches to the problem of domestic violence. As Mills concludes, the criminal justice system’s focus on punishing the abuser neglects the important goal of healing for both the abuser and the victim.4 The numerous recent scientific studies Mills cites and discusses confirm her conclusion that arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of the offenders does not necessarily reduce the problem of domestic violence, while these actions may often be making the problem more serious, both for both offenders and victims. As the many studies reviewed by Mills indicate, the criminal justice system has not found a way to adequately address the widespread problem of domestic abuse. When the batterers are dealt with in the present punitive system, “levels of violence are not improved and [the punishment] may even make matters worse.”5 The goals of reducing violence and providing safety for victims must override the current tendency toward blame and punishment. Our current system of retributive justice focuses almost exclusively on punishing the person identified as the offender and neglects the critical goals and processes of healing. Studies on the effects of arrest and prosecution of domestic violence offenders do not support the hypothesis that either arrest or prosecution has a deterrent effect on the abuser. For example, Davis, Smith, and Nickles6 reviewed a large sample (1,133 cases) of domestic violence cases and found that prosecution had no effect on the likelihood of re-arrest of the batterer within a six-month 2 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 6. 3 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” pp. 188–189. 4 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 137. 5 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 137. 6 Robert C. Davis, Barbara E. Smith, and Laura B. Nickles. “The Deterrent Effect of Prosecuting Domestic Violence Misdemeanors.” Crime and Delinquency 44: 429–445, 1998.

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period. Davis and his colleagues determined that the rate of recidivism was unaffected by whether a case was dropped, dismissed, or prosecuted. Mandatory arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of male batterers robs women in abusive relationships of any power to take the abuse problem into their hands and decide what to do about it. Mill states that “the power dynamics asserted by mainstream feminists and supported by the professionals who apply mainstream policies actually do damage to women who stay in abusive relationships.”7 A later section of this chapter discusses several alternative approaches which do empower women. Many mainstream feminists and others now believe that laws requiring mandatory arrest are one of the most effective methods for ensuring that police officers arrest batterers for their crimes against women. The problem with such rules and polices is that the empirical evidence strongly indicates that mandatory arrest, in many cases, does not deter the batterer. In fact, there is strong empirical evidence that mandatory arrest may actually incite some batterers to increased acts of violence against women.8 The response of the criminal justice system to domestic violence can in fact increase homicides in some circumstances. Attempts to prosecute violations of protection orders have been associated with an increase in homicides of both black unmarried women and white married women. An increase in homicides of black women by their boyfriends has also been associated with legal advocacy.9 The researcher Dr. Lawrence Sherman and his colleagues10 conducted a study in Milwaukee on the effects of arrest on batterers in that city. The investigation distinguished between three possible interventions by the police: full arrest, short arrest, and no arrest. Sherman found that short or full arrest had a short-term deterrent effect. However, over the long-term, violence of these men toward their women increased in cases in which the offender had been arrested. Sherman wrote: “The difference in reaction to full arrest between blacks and whites is startling. The fact that 10,000 arrested whites produces 2,504 . . . fewer acts of domestic violence per year than warned whites, while 10,000 arrested blacks produces 1,803 . . . more acts of violence per year than warned blacks, is a far larger magnitude than we ever expected.”11 Those who were merely warned and not arrested were told by the police that they would be punished if they did 7 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 65. 8 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 37. 9 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 107. 10 Lawrence W. Sherman, Janell D. Schmidt, et al. “The Variable Effects of Arrest on Criminal Careers: The Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 83:137–169, 1992. 11 Sherman, Schmidt, and Razan, “The Variable Effects of Arrest,” p. 160.

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not stop being violent toward their partners. The validity of the findings in the study cited above, which was headed by Sherman, is greatly enhanced by their having been replicated in similar experiments in two other cities: Omaha, Nebraska, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.12 The arrest of 10,000 African-American men in Milwaukee for domestic violence crimes produced, over the time of the study (twenty-two months), 1,803 more acts of domestic violence primarily against African-American women. According to Sherman’s findings, if these men had been warned and not arrested, these acts of violence would not have occurred or would have been delayed. When Milwaukee police arrested 10,000 Caucasian men, they produced 2,504 fewer acts of domestic violence against Caucasian women when compared with cases in which the Caucasian men were merely warned. In short, Dr. Sherman found that arrest of Caucasian batterers tends to deter them from further acts of violence. In contrast, the arrest of African-American men tended to incite these men to increased acts of violence against their partners.13 When Sherman considered who is most likely to get arrested by the police in Milwaukee, he surmised that three times as many African-American men as Caucasian men would be arrested for domestic violence. According to Sherman’s calculations, a mandatory arrest policy in Milwaukee would prevent 2,504 acts of violence against Caucasian women. However, such a policy would increase the amount of domestic violence among the African Americans to the extent of 5,409 acts of violence against mainly African-American women. In short, a policy of mandatory arrest of batterers in Milwaukee would most probably cause more violence toward women.14 The present punitive system of mandatory arrest of domestic violence offenders has proven to be a failure, especially among the minority peoples of our inner cities. Dr. Sherman recently observed, “Until you admit that mandatory arrest is a failure in our inner cities, you won’t get anybody to spend a penny for other alternatives.”15

MANDATORY ARREST AND PROSECUTION Another well-founded reason Linda Mills opposes the present system is because the mandatory criminal justice system responses of arrest, prosecution, 12 Sherman, Schmidt, and Razan, “The Variable Effects of Arrest,” p. 165. 13 Sherman, Schmidt, and Razan, “The Variable Effects of Arrest,” p. 160. 14 Sherman, Schmidt, and Razan, “The Variable Effects of Arrest,” p. 160. 15 Linda Mills, in Insult to Injury, p. 38, quotes Laurence Sherman in Deborah Sontag’s article, “Fierce Entanglements,” New York Times Magazine, November 17, 2002, p. 56. Sherman has been one of the leading researchers on the effects of current policies for mandatory arrest and incarceration for dealing with domestic abuse cases.

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and incarceration rob a woman “of the most important resource she has to counteract the violence: her personal power.”16 The present mandatory interventions assume that the state can act as the woman’s “omnipotent savior.” Professor Mills is forthright in her criticism of the criminal justice system policies of mandatory arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of domestic abuse offenders, and I heartily agree with her statement that “there is no intrinsic need to treat wrongdoing with punishment.”17 The criminal justice system has failed more often than not in its aims of protecting women and in deterring men from being physically abusive to women. In short, the criminal justice system’s punitive approach tends to do more harm to both the offenders and victims of domestic violence than it does good.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACHES TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE As an alternative to the criminal justice system, Mills recommends an alternative: Intimate Abuse Circles. These circles are modeled after restorative justice approaches, such as those chosen for the operation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work in South Africa. These circles engage both parties involved in the domestic abuse as well as a core community (family, friends, neighbors, clergy, etc.), who together participate in a process of recognition, responsibility, and change through healing. Learning to take responsibility for one’s contribution to the violence plays a vital role in interrupting the cycle of emotional abuse and physical violence.18 There exists today a nonviolent, nonpunitive and effective approach to domestic violence and it is called restorative justice. Restorative-justice approaches are superior to traditional criminal justice approaches both for reducing violence and for facilitating healing among offenders and victims.19 Advocates of restorative justice argue that the current criminal justice approach to domestic violence tends to evoke a culture of denial and punishment, whereas restorative justice fosters a culture of apology and healing.20

EMPOWERING WOMEN IN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACHES There is persuasive evidence to indicate that women in abusive relationships may in fact be empowered by restorative justice approaches. Women emerge as 16 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 49. 17 Mills, Insult to Injury, p. 136. 18 Mills, Insult to Injury, pp. 101–118. 19 Joan Pennell and Gale Buford, “Feminist Praxis: Making Family Group Conferencing Work.” In Strang and Braithwaite, Restorative Justice and Family Violence, pp. 108–127. 20 Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” p. 189.

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leaders in family group conferences designed to address family violence issues such as the physical abuse of wives or sexual abuse of children. In their seminal study of family group conferencing, Professors Joan Pennell and Gale Buford found that women banded together to cross family, generational, and professional lines and took a leadership role in first discussing and then planning remedies for family violence.21 Both Joan Pennell and Gale Buford are professors of social work in American universities and they collaborated on a research project called the Family Group Decision Making project. The research was done in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador. Their perspective on family group conferences is shaped by multiple social movements including feminist, aboriginal, and restorative justice. In one of the best and most sophisticated types of research done on the place of restorative justice in domestic violence, Professors Pennell and Buford studied family violence conferencing approaches that bring family members together to discuss abuse, including sexual abuse, in an effort to diminish violence and promote healing. Buford and Pennell found substantial reductions in thirty-one behavior problems, ranging from sexual abuse of children to alcoholism and spousal physical abuse, as compared with a matched control group of families who did not attend family group conferences.22 Thirty-two families took part in conferencing over a one-year period. A total of thirty-seven conferences were held, with thirty-two first-time and five reconvened conferences. The 472 participants included 384 family group members and 88 service providers. Referrals came from child welfare, adult parole and probation services, and youth corrections. Most families dealt with child abuse and negligence or youth unmanageability. Later, other concerns such as twenty-one cases of spousal physical abuse and child sexual abuse in seven families were dealt with. The major findings for the families in the Project were: “A reduction in indicators of child maltreatment and domestic violence; an advancement in children’s development; and an extension of social supports.”23 The findings from the three studies cited also demonstrate that the Family Group Decision Making approach can work in different cultures, including 21 Pennell and Buford, “Feminist Praxis,” pp. 108–127. See also Gale Burford and Joan Pennell, “Family Group Decision Making: Generating Indigenous Structures for Resolving Family Violence,” Protecting Children 12(3), 17–21, 1996; and Joan Pennell and Gale Burford, Family Group Decision Making: Communities Stopping Family Violence: Questions and Answers. Monograph prepared for Health Canada, Family Violence Prevention Division. Cat. No. H72-21/1581998E. Hull, Québec: Minister of Public Works and Government Services. (in English and French), 1998. US distribution through the American Humane Association. 22 P. 242, Buford and Pennell’s work is reported by John Braithwaite in “Youth Development Circles,” Oxford Review of Education 27: 240–241, 2001. 23 Pennell and Buford, “Feminist Praxis,” p. 110.

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a northerly Inuit settlement; a rural peninsula with people of English, French, and Micmac heritage; and an urban center with residents of British and Irish descent. The family members and other participants found these family violence conferences satisfying and helpful: “Ninety-four percent of family members ‘were satisfied with the way it was run’; 92 percent felt they were ‘able to say what was important’; and 92 percent ‘agreed with the plan decided on.’ ”24 The startling and positive findings in the Buford and Pennell investigation and the other studies reported in the book Restorative Justice and Family Violence strongly suggest that individuals who participate in restorative justice approaches to the various forms of family violence are not only satisfied with the results but also tremendously more engaged than those families with similar problems involved with the criminal justice system.25 The traditional punitive approach to domestic violence tends to foster more domestic violence. The restorative justice approach tends to bring about healing and reconciliation for both offenders and victims.

24 Pennell and Buford’s research is reported by John Braithwaite in Tonry, “Restorative Justice, Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic Accounts,” p. 36. 25 Strang and Braithwaite, Restorative Justice and Family Violence, p. 121.

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CHAPTER 22. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE COMPARISON

AND

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE — A

Restorative Justice is founded on principles of nonviolence, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Today the criminal justice system in the United States is based on retribution; in this system justice is not served until the offender is punished. In this chapter my purpose is to explain the moral foundations of what I believe to be a more effective system, which is the restorative justice movement.

RETRIBUTION AND REVENGE Professor Christopher Marshall understands the terms retributivism and retribution to mean punishment motivated by vengeance and/or revenge. I concur with Marshall’s opinion that “most criminologists regard retribution as simple vengeance.”1 Retribution, he observes, is directly counter to the moral teachings of the New Testament, and specifically with its commandment to show goodwill toward all people, including one’s enemies.2 Early Christian practice focused on acceptance of forgiveness of wrongdoing, emphasizing the necessity of reconciliation and redemption. If these principles were adopted by the criminal justice system as a substitution for punishment, the system could be transformed from one that is mainly destructive to human well-being to one serving a constructive and healing function for offenders, for victims, and for society as a whole. 1 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 110. 2 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 117.

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According to T. J. Gorringe, “The New Testament, far from underscoring retributivism, actually deconstructs it.”3 C. F. D. Moule insists that retribution has no place in a Christian vocabulary. He asserts that “the fittingness of retribution and the idea that punishment is proper, simply qua punishment, do need to be challenged in the name of personal values, and especially, in the name of the Christian gospel.”4 Punishment of offenders cannot satisfy and should not be considered capable of satisfying the demands of justice. In the Restorative Justice approach, justice requires reconciliation, restoration, and forgiveness.5

RESTITUTION OR RETRIBUTION? In non-capital cases, the emphasis in jurisprudence in the Old Testament falls on restitution rather than retribution. The fundamental principle underlying Israelite laws concerning injured individuals was restitution. Israelite law sought mainly for restitution of the victim to his status prior to the criminal act rather than punishment of the offender.6 In its overriding preoccupation with apprehending, convicting, and then punishing criminals, our criminal justice system often neglects the victim. Most often nothing is done to help restore the victim to the status he or she had prior to the crime. For example, many rape victims, out of their justifiable fear of the humiliating abuse they probably will receive from the criminal justice system, do not report their being raped to the proper authorities. Rape victims in the US are frequently retraumatized by the system’s neglect for their welfare and by the abuse they receive from the courts, especially from harsh defense attorneys representing the alleged rapist.

THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS Forgiveness has no place in our contemporary criminal justice system. In contrast, the restorative justice approach does provide a prominent place for forgiveness and reconciliation. For example, the highly successful Family Group Conferencing in the New Zealand youth court systems establishes some of the

3 Timothy J. Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence, and the Rhetoric of Salvation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 58. 4 C. F. C. Moule, “Punishment and Retribution: An Attempt to Delimit Their Scope in New Testament Thought.” New Perspectives on Crime and Justice 10 (1990), p. 19, a paper of the. Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, PA. 5 Thomas Talbot, “Punishment, Forgiveness, and Divine Justice.” Religious Studies 29:151–168, 1993, p. 168. 6 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 125.

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Chapter 22. Restorative Justice and Retributive Justice — A Comparison

conditions needed for forgiveness to occur. See Chapters 20 and 21 for a discussion of Family Group Conferences. The restorative and healing values of forgiveness accrue to the injured party as much as and sometimes more than what accrues to the offender. “The need to be forgiving is as much for the sake of the injured party as it is for the offender, for forgiveness is a process whereby those who have been wounded let go of the power of the offence and the offender over them, and move toward freedom and wholeness.”7 Professor Marshall defines forgiveness in this way: “Forgiveness is what happens when the victim of some hurtful action freely chooses to release the perpetrator of that action from the bondage of guilt, gives up his or her own feelings of ill will, and surrenders any attempt to hurt or damage the perpetrator in return, thus clearing the way for reconciliation and restoration of relationships.”8 Forgiveness provides release and a quality of enhanced positive freedom for the victim. Without it, the pain of the offense or the person of the offender comes to have power over the victim’s entire life. As Dr. Zehr writes, Forgiveness is letting go of the power the offense and the offender have over a person. It means no longer letting that offense and offender dominate. Without this experience of forgiveness, without this closure, the wound festers, the violation takes over our consciousness, our lives. It, and the offender, are in control. Real forgiveness, then, is an act of empowerment and healing. It allows one to move from victim to survivor.9

Punishment perpetuates the cycle of violence; forgiveness interrupts and stops the cycle of violence. Forgiveness does not repay in kind. Forgiveness dissolves the victim’s desires for revenge and retaliation, thus providing one step toward a restoration of the relationship. Forgiveness clears the way for the recovery or repair of the relationship. The culmination of the forgiveness process is reconciliation between the offender and the victim.10

THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION (TRC) IN SOUTH AFRICA The most innovative and successful government-sponsored quasi-legal procedure for dealing with serious criminal offences, one that facilitated but did not mandate forgiveness and healing, is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa. The TRC was established in 1995 by an act of parliament and for two-and-ahalf years was under the chairmanship of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The commission heard thousands of cases of human rights abuses that had been com7 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 73. 8 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 264. 9 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 47. 10 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 269.

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mitted under the previous apartheid regime, including the abduction, torture, maiming, and murder of many blacks. To deal with those guilty of those violations, the new South African government adopted a moral approach midway between the wholly punitive mechanisms of the post-World War II Nuremburg and Tokyo war-crimes tribunals on the one hand, and the blanket amnesties conferred by the newly created democracies of several Latin American countries on the other.11 The TRC was willing to grant amnesty to offenders, but only in return for full disclosure of what crimes they had committed, including the names of the superiors whose orders they were following. Those who failed to apply for amnesty or to meet its conditions could be arrested and tried by the criminal justice courts. The TRC gave victims an opportunity to tell their stories, and, where possible, to be compensated for their losses. The victims were not required to forgive the offenders, and the offenders were not pressured to express remorse or offer restitution. Yet both victims and offenders did attempt to foster reconciliation. Many victims spontaneously offered forgiveness to the perpetrators, and a large number of the perpetrators expressed their remorse for what they had done. Some provided restitution (compensation) to the victims or their relatives. Forgiveness provided release for both the victim and the offenders and created a stronger foundation for a national reconciliation than harsh programs of retribution and punishing incarceration could have. Some historians believe the TRC averted a racist civil war between the blacks and the white people in South Africa. Professor Marshall writes that the TRC “sought to restore dignity and personhood to victims and to offer a fresh start to offenders by making room for truth in place of silence, repentance in place of denial, money instead of retribution, and forgiveness instead of hatred.”12

AMY BIEHL — A CASE VIGNETTE ON THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS Amy Biehl, a California college student, won a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to South Africa to work in the anti-apartheid movement. During a riot she was murdered by a mob of blacks. After years of mourning, her parents, Linda and Peter, quit their well-paying jobs and moved to South Africa to try to complete the work their daughter started. Later Amy’s parents met two of their daughter’s killers. The two young men were full of remorse. They tried to atone for their crime by doing public service for a foundation the Biehls established in Amy’s name. Linda and Peter forgave 11 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, pp. 280–281. 12 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 283.

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the two killers, and they became friends, so much so that both of the men would then address Linda as “Mom.” I wonder if the two young men were not unconsciously replicating the relationship Amy once had with her mother, Linda. Obviously the forgiveness served a constructive purpose for the two killers. Yet consider what forgiveness did for Linda and Peter. Rather than have their lives consumed by hatred and bitterness, the Biehls are leading constructive and compassionate lives as part of a great South African reconciliation effort.13 Psychological research shows that being a forgiving person is essential to happiness. Everett Worthington, a clinical psychologist who has done research on forgiveness, has found that people who forgive have better health, fewer episodes of depression, and longer marriages. In contrast, those who would not forgive tend to have negative indicators of well-being and health. They also have more stress-related disorders, lower immune-system function, and higher rates of cardiovascular disease than the general population.14 Through scientific studies on forgiveness, carried out through a comparison of groups instructed in forgiveness with other groups who were not, the psychologist Dr. Robert D. Enright and his associates found substantial and credible evidence that forgiveness produces benefits for those who forgive.15 Dr. Enright’s book is a self-help book that presents a scientifically tested program for forgiveness. Enright holds that compassion, benevolence, and love toward the one who has hurt us are necessary parts of forgiveness.16 This is the paradox of forgiveness — as we reach out with compassion to the one who hurts us, we are the ones who heal.17 Dr. Enright states, “forgiveness requires giving up something to which we have a right — namely our anger or resentment” [to whoever has hurt us].18 Psychoanalytic treatment often helps to provide the conditions for forgiveness. The Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller explains the importance of facing the reality of one’s childhood and one’s emotional responses to trauma, such as anger, shame, or fear, at any age. In this way, psychoanalytic treatment can pave the way for forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on. Forgiveness cannot be coerced by rules and commandments; it is expe-

13 George Easterbrook, “Forgiveness May Be Beneficial to Good Health.” Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology 2:5–6, 2002. 14 Easterbrook, “Forgiveness May Be Beneficial.” 15 Robert D. Enright, Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001, p. 12. 16 Enright, Forgiveness Is a Choice, p. 36. 17 Enright, Forgiveness Is a Choice, p. 36. 18 Enright, Forgiveness Is a Choice, p. 25.

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rienced as a form of grace, oftentimes emerging spontaneously when a previously repressed and forbidden hatred no longer poisons the soul.19 The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy maintained that if we take seriously the New Testament commandment to love and forgive our enemies, we would have to abandon the whole punitive criminal justice system.20 Loving one’s enemy leaves no room for coercion or punitive retribution.21

WHO HELPS THE VICTIMS OF CRIME? A vast difference exists between the way victims are viewed and treated by those governments using the present retributive model of justice and what takes place in those governments that have recently introduced and followed the restorative model. It is important to consider that, for the most part, the retributive model ignores the victim. Crime is viewed as a violation of the state, and in the trial of the offender the antagonists are the offender and the state. In the restorative model, the victim has a special place in the whole process of establishing restorative justice for both the victim and the offender. Restitution is an important part of the restorative justice program, but rarely occurs in the retributive justice system. Restitution entails having the offender compensate the victim for the harm done to him or her by the offender. The justice presented by the restorative justice system favors restitution rather than retribution and punishment.22 Historically, England has led the way in the construction of local victimsupport agencies and programs, which use volunteers to provide help to victims of crime as they move through the justice process and search for recovery from the psychic trauma of their victimization.23 Unfortunately, in the US little is done for crime victims. Our failure to take victims seriously leaves a terrible legacy of psychic trauma, fear, suspicion, depression, anger, and sometimes (oddly enough) guilt. The neglect of crime victims is one cause of their growing demands for vengeance. The awful realization that they don’t matter to the criminal justice system often comes to the victims after they report an offense. Frequently, they are shocked and deeply disappointed that the charges they made can be either pursued or dropped without regard for the victim’s wishes, and they are provided little information about what is happening to the offender or the case. In short, 19 A. Miller, For Your Own Good, p. 248. 20 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 24. 21 Marshall, Beyond Retribution, p. 27. 22 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 141. 23 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 31.

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victims are left out of the legal process from the time they make the initial complaint until the time when the wrongdoer is either acquitted or punished. Some victims speak of a “second victimization” by criminal justice personnel and processes.24 The reluctance of many rape victims to report the rape arises in part out of what women hear about how badly the criminal justice system treats rape victims. Often they are accused of complicity in the crime, or of lying. Too often individuals working within the criminal justice system retraumatize rape victims. Part of the dehumanizing and traumatizing processes of crime victimization is the way crime robs victims of power. They feel, at least temporarily, weak, helpless, and fearful after being robbed, raped, or otherwise damaged by the offender. Dr. Zehr writes, “Instead of returning power to them [the victims] by allowing them to participate in the justice process, the legal system compounds the injury by again denying power. Instead of helping, the process hurts.”25

ALL POWER TO THE STATE Dr. Zehr further asserts that “the criminal justice process compounds the problems, robbing both victim and offender of a legitimate sense of power, while concentrating power dangerously in the hands of a few.”26 In no area of our lives does the state have as much power as it has in the criminal justice system. When the punishment is imposed on offenders, the state has a need to dramatize and ritualize the awesome power of the state and the law over the intimidated offenders as well as the general public. Several authors, including Dr. Zehr and the French philosopher Michel Foucault, trace the establishment of retributive justice and the development of prisons about two centuries ago to the need of the state to legitimate and consolidate its power.27

WHO IS THE VICTIM — THE STATE OR THE INDIVIDUAL WHO IS HARMED? In the criminal law of the United States, crime is defined as an offense against the state (the government). The state, not the individual harmed by the offender, is defined as the victim. The actual persons who were harmed by the offender are left out of the whole legal process; they are bystanders, not participants in the criminal justice system’s legal procedures. The only time they play a part in legal proceedings against the offender is when they are called as witnesses.28 24 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 21. 25 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 31. 26 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 56. 27 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 125; and Foucault. Discipline and Punish, pp. 271–274 28 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 82.

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The relationship between the offender and his victim(s) together with such moral and relational issues as restitution, forgiveness, confession, and the like, are ignored because they are not part of the equation of power in retributive justice procedures.

PUNISHMENT AND PAIN Retributive justice holds that the humiliation and painful suffering of punishment are what justice is all about and that offenders must be deterred from committing harmful acts by punitive harshness rather than acts of understanding and love. Actually, the harm engendered by punishment is part of the cycle of violence rather than a solution to it. By not causing more harm and suffering, and by attending to the basic human needs of both victims and offenders, restorative justice programs bring more healing and true justice, and, in the long run, lessen the incidence of crime. Punishment and the pain of punishment constitute the overriding goal of today’s retributionist criminal justice system. Throughout the system, from the processes of arrest and trial through the period of incarceration, the wounds and needs of both the victim and the offender are grossly neglected. Worse yet, the injuries to both parties (victims and offenders) are most often compounded.29 Efforts to bring healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and mastery over their stress and trauma are ignored. In restorative justice programs the psychological, spiritual, and relational needs of both parties are met so that both may find healing and recovery.

DOES PAIN REPAY THE OFFENDER’S MORAL DEBT? Punishment is the intentional infliction of pain on a wrongdoer. In the American justice system, crime is considered to create a moral debt that must be repaid by punishment and the infliction of pain. The legal system mistakenly assumes that what is needed to pay the debt is the pain of punishment.30 When in everyday life individuals talk about crime and justice, they say justice is accomplished when the offender is caused to suffer the pain of punishment. When prisoners have served their prescribed time in prison, we say, “He has paid his debt to society.” Offenders are told to believe that by suffering the pains of their punishment they are thereby paying their debt to society. Nonsense! Whereas in retributive justice the offender pays his moral debt by the pain of punishment, in the restorative justice process the offender pays his moral debt to 29 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 63. 30 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 74.

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the victim by restitution. The restitution is accomplished by compensating the victim, by community service, or other sorts of compensation that are not painful for the victim. The bizarre claim that the pain of punishment can somehow “pay” either the victim or society for criminal acts is irrational. The painful suffering and humiliation of the offender only adds unnecessary harm to the situation, and it cannot logically “repay” any moral debt to anyone. The retributive model of justice is not the only conceptualization of justice in the West. Historically, it has become predominant in legal theory and praxis only in the past few centuries, in the US. Some of the features now included in the restorative model had their beginnings in Europe hundreds of years ago, where, for example, crime was viewed primarily in an interpersonal context, as a wrong committed by persons on other persons. Individuals who were harmed by the offender were seen as the victims; the state was not seen as a victim as it is in the retributive mode. In the past, restitution and compensation agreements were commonplace.31 Before about 1800, punishment was only one of many possible outcomes and represented a failure of their other strategies such as fines, restitution, compensation, negotiation, and the like.

THE VICTIM OFFENDER RECONCILIATION PROGRAM The only organized Restorative Justice program active in this country that I know about is the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP). Similar programs are operative in Canada, England, and in a number of countries in Continental Europe. Although VORP is an independent organization outside the criminal justice system, it works in close cooperation with that system. In the Victim Offence Reconciliation Program the process is used in cases being evaluated in the criminal justice system where the offender has admitted the offense, and consists of a face-to-face encounter between the offender and victim. Meetings are chaired and facilitated by a trained mediator who plays an important role in the process. Meetings are conducted in an atmosphere that allows the participants, rather than the mediator, to determine outcomes. Both parties are encouraged to tell their stories and to ask questions about the crime and its impact. Then they decide together what will be done about it. Once they agree, they sign a written contract. Most often the contract includes the terms of financial restitution to the victim.32 Proponents of VORP and other restorative justice programs recognize the importance of offenders accepting responsibility for their actions and taking steps to repair the harm they have done to victims. 31 Zehn, Changing Lenses, p. 99. 32 Zehr, Changing Lenses, pp. 160–162.

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Most VORP cases are referred by the court, although some programs receive referrals from the police or other agencies. The majority of cases handled by VORP organizations in Canada or the US have been property cases, such as burglaries. A few programs handle cases of violence. For cases referred by the courts in the US, the agreement becomes part of the sentence, and offenders are placed on probation until their contract is fulfilled. Research on the results of this process shows that from eighty to ninety percent of agreements are fulfilled.33 An overwhelming majority of participants (both victims and offenders) are satisfied with the program and state they would favor using it again or recommend the process to their friends. VORP makes possible some of the conditions needed for healing and reconciliation, for empowerment, truth-telling, answering of questions, recovery of losses, and sometimes forgiveness. One key aspect of the VORP process is that it provides victims with an opportunity to feel they are doing something constructive to help change the offender’s behavior. Several studies have shown a reduction in recidivism rates of offenders who participate in the VORP program.34 Burt Galloway has studied VORP and other restitution programs and strongly encourages the expansion of their worthwhile work.35 Both the general public and more than fifty percent of victims support the use of restitution. Research studies indicate that restitution programs, including VORP, have an impact on recidivism as great as or greater than other criminal sanctions.36

JAPAN’S EFFECTIVE TWO-TRACK JUDICIAL SYSTEM A unique two-track judicial criminal justice system operates in Japan. One track operates on the model of a Western-style formal system similar to the one in the US. The other track is informal, and although it is unique, it does include some features — such as restitution and reconciliation — that are found in countries that endorse restorative justice. The Japanese Western-style formal criminal justice system focuses on the determination of guilt and/or punishment. Only a few cases proceed all the way through the formal system to end up in prolonged incarceration.37 John O. Haley, a specialist in Japanese law, summarizes the remarkably humane care many offenders receive in Japan. 33 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 164. 34 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 165. 35 Burt Galloway, “Restitution as Incarceration or Unfulfilled Promise?” Federal Probation XII(3), pp. 3–14, 1988. 36 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 167. 37 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 217.

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Chapter 22. Restorative Justice and Retributive Justice — A Comparison A pattern of confession, repentance, and absolution dominates each stage of law enforcement in Japan. The players in the process include not only the authorities in new roles, but also the offender and the victim. From the initial police interrogation through the final judicial hearing on sentencing, the vast majority of those accused of criminal offenses confess, display repentance, negotiate for their victim’s pardon, and submit to the mercy of the authorities. In return, they are treated with extraordinary leniency; they gain at least the prospect of institution[al] absolution by being dropped from the formal process altogether.38

Cases are moved out of the Japanese formal legal system at each stage of the process. Few offenders are prosecuted and even fewer are fully prosecuted. Unlike the operation of the criminal justice system in America, in Japan only a small minority are incarcerated and few are in prison for more than a year.39 Some of the conditions influencing decisions to shift cases from the formal punitive system to the more informal and humane system include the following: The willingness of the offender to admit guilt, to express remorse, and to make compensation to the victim, and the victim’s willingness to receive compensation and to pardon the offender. Where the complex, punitive, and adversarial criminal justice system in the West discourages confession, the Japanese system makes it normative.40 The basic goals of the US and Japanese criminal justice systems are much different. In this country, the main focus is to establish guilt and to administer pain (punishment). The basic aims of the Japanese system are correction, rehabilitation, and reconciliation. John Haley concludes that the humane and merciful response of the Japanese and their infrequent resort to long-term punishment and incarceration is partly responsible for their lower crime rates.41 Whereas the Japanese criminal legal system valorizes and provides institutional supports for implementing repentance, forgiveness, and restitution, the Western criminal justice system reinforces societal demands for retribution (revenge), prolonged incarceration, and punishment. The humane and lenient quality in Japan’s handling of offenders has not always been as prominent as it is today. In fact, jails and prisons in Japan prior to the twentieth century were noted for their harshness and cruelty. Executions and the corporal punishment of offenders were common. The Buddhists in Japan as elsewhere have always favored non-punitive rather than punitive approaches. In fact, according to the historian Daniel V. Botsman, “Buddhist-inspired chronicles . . . spoke to readers 38 John O. Haley, “Confession, Repentance, and Absolution,” pp. 195–211. In Martin Wright and Bert Galloway, eds., Mediation and Criminal Justice. London: Sage Publications, 1989, p. 201. 39 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 218. 40 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 219. 41 Haley, “Confession, Repentance, and Absolution,” p. 210.

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of a ‘golden age,’ prior to the Hogen Rebellion of 1156, in which all forms of capital punishment had been abandoned by the Imperial Court for a period of some three-and-a-half centuries.”42

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE For retributive justice, crime is a violation of the state, as defined by lawbreaking and guilt. For restorative justice, crime is a violation of people and relationships; it therefore creates obligations to make things right. Retributive justice determines blame and administers pain (punishment). Restorative justice involves the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions that promote repair, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.43 Both retributive justice and restorative justice hold that crime creates a debt to make right. For retributive justice, this debt is considered to be paid off by punishment, by causing the offender to suffer. For restorative justice, the debt is paid by restitution, by compensating the victim for the harm done by the offender.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS This book has emphasized the psychological damage done to the victims of systems of domination and punishment. Actually, both victims and victimizers are damaged by systems of punitive domination. Any relationship based on domination and punishment will deform both parties, keeping them alienated from each other and from developing a healthy relationship founded on mutual respect and compassion. This principle holds true for the fundamentalist mothers who spank their children as well as the guards who either denigrate their prisoners or maintain an attitude of cold detachment from them. The ideas of law and justice held by the supporters of our social systems of punitive domination are ideological rationalizations of their own economic interests. These ideas are false because they are not directed at a correct understanding of either human nature or human history; moreover, they are held more or less unconsciously by those who mask their own desires for punitive dominance and exploitation of the disadvantaged. What prevents otherwise well-meaning and human Americans from reforming their inhumane and destructive systems of domination and punishment? To adequately respond to this question I would have to write another book. Here 42 Daniel V. Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 47. 43 Zehr, Changing Lenses, p. 181.

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I shall offer only one of many reasons for the lack of reform: most Americans are in denial about the destructive, harmful nature of our systems of punitive domination. I hope this book has helped others to understand how this denial has prevented Americans from adopting more humane and constructive approaches, such as those of restorative justice.

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273

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Bibliography Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1984; originally published in 1894. 1 2 , endnote 7; Michael Tonry, Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Michael Tonry, ed., Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 25, pp. 1–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Jeremy Travis, “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion.” In Mauer and ChesneyLind, Invisible Punishment. Scott Turow, “To Kill or Not to Kill,” pp. 38–47. The New Yorker, January 6, 2003, p. 43. U-V Andrew Vachss, “The Difference Between ‘Sick’ and ‘Evil.’ ” Parade magazine, July 14, 2002. J. Vagg, “Delinquency and Shame.” British Journal of Criminology 38:247–264, 1998. Henk van Andel, “Crime Prevention That Works: The Case of Public Transport in the Netherlands.” British Journal of Criminology 29:47–56, 1989 Ernest Van Den Haag and John P. Conrad, The Death Penalty, A Debate. New York: Plenum Press, 1983. James K. Van Fleet, Twenty-five Steps to Power and Mastery Over People. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing, 1983. W Michael Welsch, “Prisonization.” In Marilyn D. McShane and Frank P. Williams III, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, pp. 357–362. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. Joseph M. Wepman and Ralph W. Heine, eds., Concepts of Personality. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1963. Allen Wheelis, How People Change. New York: Harper & Row, Perennial Library, 1973. Betsy White, “John Haviland 1782–1852.” In Marilyn D. McShane and Frank P. Williams III, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, pp. 228–230. New York: Garland, 1996. Cathy Spatz Widom, “The Cycle of Violence.” Science 244:160–165, 1987. Patricia Williams, “Infallible Justice.” The Nation 265:9 (October 7, 2002). Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992. Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1984. Walter Wink, “Neither Passivity nor Violence.” In Willard M. Swartley, ed., The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament, pp. 102–125. Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1992. Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for New Millennium. New York: Doubleday, 1998.

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Crimes of Punishment Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 1986. Walter Wink, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1987. Denise Winn, The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning, and Indoctrination. London: Octagon Press, 1983. Donald W. Winnicott, “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self” (1960). In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment), pp. 140–152. New York: International Universities Press, 1965. Robert Wolf, “Violence and the Law.” In Robert Wolf, ed., The Rule of Law.. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971. Kevin Wright, The Great American Crime Myth. New York: Praeger, New York, 1987. Martin Wright and Bert Galloway, eds., Mediation and Criminal Justice. London: Sage Publications, 1989. Leon Wurmser, The Mask of Shame. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1974. X, Y, Z Vernetta D. Young, “Corporal Punishment.” In Marilyn D. McShane and Frank P. Williams III, eds., The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1990. Howard Zehr and Harold Mika, “Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice.” Contemporary Justice Review 1:47–55, 1988. ###

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INDEX

A Abolish Corporal Punishment, 102, 265 Abramsky, Sasha, 67, 263 Acceptance of Punishment, 194 Ackerman, Peter, 229-230, 263 Adams, Bob, 266 Adams Media Corporation, 266 AIDS, 24, 48, 236 Alcoholics Anonymous, 58 Allen, John, 25-26, 58, 273, 275 American Academy of Pediatrics, 50, 263 American Bar Association, 119, 263 American Bar Association House of Delegates, 263 American Families, 274 American Humane Association, 272 American Journal of Psychiatry, 268 American Journal of Sociology, 267 American Medical Association, 270, 274 American Parents, 274 American Penal Culture, 275 American Psychiatric Association, 208, 266 American Psychoanalytic Association, 271 American Psychological Association, 266 Amnesty Now, 267, 273 Andenaes, Johannes, 72, 263 Anderson, Charles, 98 Anderson, Patricia, 210

277

Anderson, Roy, 211 Angola State Prison, 113 Antisocial Institutions, 207 Antisocial Personality Disorder, 208 Antisocial Systems of Domination, 206 APD, 208-210 Apocalyptic Impulse, 161 Archer, William, 269 Archives of Sexual Behavior, 272 Arendt, Hannah, 231, 263 Aronson, Jason, 266-267, 270, 276 Attica Prison, 60 Auburn Prison, 64-65, 101 Auburn Systems, 269 Authoritarianism, 48, 193

B Bach, George Robert, 181, 263 Bacich, Anthony R., 273 Bailey, W. C., 115, 263 Bakan, Joel, 206-208, 210 Banner, Stuart, 115, 264 Barnes, Cliff, 81 Bateson, Gregory, 136 Beccaria, Cesare, 116, 264 Beckett, Katherine, 82, 264 Bedau, Hugo A., 115, 264 Behaviorist Psychology, 270 Beitz, Charles R., 268, 272-273

Crimes of Punishment Beloved Passions, 266 Bendix, Reinhard, 108-109, 272 Benevolence of Supernatural Beings, 270 Benjamin, Jessica, 40, 48, 187, 264, 274 Bentham, Jeremy, 79 Bergman, Ingrid, 179 Bethany Fellowship, 265 Biblical Perspectives, 268 Biehl, Amy, 252 Bipersonal Field, 270 Bishop, Jennifer, 122-123 Black Panthers, 231 Blackmun, Harry, 120 Blecker, Robert, 59, 72, 132, 138, 264 Bohm, Robert M., 264 Bondurant, Joan V., 264 Bonnie, Richard, 72, 270 Borderline Personality Disorder, 16-17 Borkman, John Gabriel, 269 Botsman, Daniel V., 259, 264 Bovard, James, 194, 264 Bowers, William J., 124, 264 Boyer, Charles, 179 Braithwaite, John B., 22-23, 233, 235-239, 264, 270-271, 274 Brezina, Timothy, 47, 264 Brotherly Love Overrides Oppression, 61 Browne, Angela, 171 Brutalization Theory, 4, 111, 124-125 Buddhism, 49 Burford, Gale, 265, 272 Bursik, Robert J., 156, 268 Bush, George H. W., 56, 81-82 Bybee, Roger W., 42, 265

C Calef, Victor, 179, 265 Camus, Albert, 114, 117, 156, 265 Capital Punishment, 3, 111, 113-117, 119-123, 125, 130, 132, 194, 260, 263-264, 268 Carlsworth, K. M., 265 Carroll, Les, 265 Carry, Mary, 71, 234 Carter, Jay, 175-176 Case of Public Transport, 275 Catholic Worker House, 224-225 Century of Nonviolent Conflict, 263 Cermak Health Services, 57 Challenging Capital Punishment, 264, 268

Champion, Dean, 69, 265 Chapman, Sherrie, 170 Characteristics of APD, 210 Chesney-Lind, 172, 265, 268, 270-272, 274275 Chesterton, 106 Childhood Roots of Paranoid Psychopathology, 26 Children Who Are Not Spanked Become Spoiled, 141 Chivers, Laura, 271 Chomsky, Noam, 112 Christianson, Larry, 157, 265 Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, 1112, 16 Civil Rights Act, 171 Civil War, 111, 199, 201, 252 Clallam Bay Corrections Center, 200 Clark, Ramsey, 69 Clear, Todd R., 265 Cleaver, Eldridge, 74 Clemmer, Donald, 93, 265 Clinical Child, 274 Clinical Consequences of Introjection, 265 Cognitive Development, 47-48, 274 Cohen, Joshua, 273 Cohen, Marshall, 273 Cohen, Robert L., 199 Cohn, Ellen G., 273 Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment, 270, 274 Collective Denial, 5, 140, 188-190, 195-196, 201-202, 206, 212 Collective Denial of Emotional Violence, 188 Collins, Dean J., 273 Communities Stopping Family Violence, 272 Concepts of Personality, 270, 275 Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies, 267 Confronting Drunk Driving, 273 Confucius(an), 155, 228, 233 Conover, Ted, 60, 85-87, 108, 199, 265 Conquest of Violence, 264 Conrad, John P., 275 Constantine, Emperor, 156 Conte, William R., 69, 86, 89, 97, 103-107, 109-110, 265 Contemporary American Politics, 264

278

Index Contemporary Family Therapy, 267 Contemporary Justice Review, 276 Contemporary Society, 267 Cook County Jail, 57 Cooper, Cynthia, 170, 265 Corporal Punishment Factsheet, 265 Corporal Punishment of Children, 1, 3, 8, 14, 16, 39, 41, 43-44, 49-50, 75, 127-128, 131, 134, 139, 143, 155, 177, 186-187, 190, 194 Corporal Punishment Tends, 40, 45, 47 Corporate America, 207 Corporate Irresponsibility, 210 Correctional HMOs, 268 Correctional Service of Canada, 265 Correctional System, 51, 73, 200 Cost Argument, 125 Côté, Gilles, 268 Crime Factory, 73 Crime of Punishment, 2, 70, 131, 152, 256, 266, 271 Crime Prevention, 20, 152, 198, 237, 239, 275 Crime Prevention That Works, 275 Criminal Justice, 4, 6, 12, 16, 21-23, 48, 5556, 62, 70-71, 74-75, 80, 82, 85, 92, 110, 111114, 117-122, 125, 127, 133, 138, 147, 150, 153, 156, 160, 167, 169, 173, 192-193, 198, 200201, 203, 205, 233, 235-236, 238-239, 249250, 252, 254-259, 268, 271, 276 Criminal Justice Standards, 70, 271 Criminal Justice System, 4, 6, 12, 16, 21-23, 48, 55-56, 62, 70-71, 74-75, 80, 82, 85, 92, 110, 111-114, 117-122, 125, 127, 133, 147, 150, 153, 156, 160, 167, 169, 192-193, 198, 200, 203, 205, 233, 235, 238-239, 249-250, 254-259 Criminal Law, 72, 94, 132, 145, 152-153, 255, 269-270, 273 Criminal Sanction, 147, 273 Criminalization, 4, 85, 93-94, 96, 148-149 Criminology, 268, 273, 275 Cross-Society Study, 157, 270 Culloton, Dennis, 123 Cultural Transformations, 268 Custodial, 94, 103, 106-108, 238 Custody, 51, 102, 108, 169 Cycle of Violence, 3, 29-31, 35-36, 38, 76, 123, 129, 231, 234-235, 251, 256, 275

D

Dalai Lama, 235, 265 Dante, Alighieri, 14 Darby, J. M., 265 Darrow, Clarence S., 12, 29, 118, 124-125, 152, 160, 205, 265 Davis, Robert C., 265 Day of Atonement, 78 De Beaumont, Gustave, 65, 264 De Tocqueville, Alexis, 65, 264 Dead Man Walking, 113, 272 Deadly Comeback, 58, 274 Dearing, Rhonda L., 15, 22-25, 274 Death of Innocents, 113, 272 Death Penalty, 3-4, 98, 111-116, 119-125, 129130, 132-133, 155-156, 158, 191, 194, 264, 269, 272, 275 Death Penalty Is Brutalization, 124, 264 Death Row, 2, 111-112, 121-123, 267 Deceitfulness, 208 Decriminalization, 272 Defiance Response, 95, 148-149 Defrocking, 128 Degradation, 23, 95-96, 267 Delimit Their Scope, 271 Delinquent Acts, 35, 43-44 DeMause, Lloyd, 265 Democratic Party, 81 Department of Corrections, 200 Department of Institutions, 103 Department of Neurosurgery, 203 Depression, 8, 16-17, 25, 36, 43, 48, 52-53, 63, 137, 168-169, 182, 197, 253-254 Deprivation, 25, 61-62, 66, 68, 89, 94, 107, 151, 187, 190, 268, 273 Destruction, 21, 95, 161, 187, 205, 211, 229, 268 Determine Human Existence, 276 Deterrent Effect of Prosecuting Domestic Violence Misdemeanors, 265 Development of Conscience, 42, 44, 48 Developmental-Contextual Model, 268 Differences Between Retributive Justice, 260 Director of Institutions, 103 Discipline Your Child Without Hitting, 49, 269 Divine Justice, 274 Dixon, Greg, 156 Dobson, James C., 157, 266

279

Crimes of Punishment Doctor Abuse, 266 Does Incarceration Deter?, 4, 145, 151 Dolinko, David, 132, 266 Domanick, Joe, 266 Domestic Abuse, 6 Domestic Violence, 265, 273 Double Whammy, 5, 178, 181-184, 266 Double-bind, 136-137 Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, 272 Drug War Goes Up, 263 Drugs, 24, 35, 52, 57-59, 63, 75, 92, 95, 168, 172, 223, 274 Drunk Drivers, 130, 267 DSM-IV-TR, 266 Dukakis, Michael, 81 Duncan, Martha, 65, 72, 79, 98-99, 117, 266 Dunkelberg, Erika, 271 DuVall, Jack, 229-230, 263 Dyscontrol, 14

E Early Christian, 249 Easterbrook, George, 266 Eastern State Hospital, 106 Eastwood, Clint, 89 Effect of Executions, 264 Effective Discipline, 263 Effective Two-Track Judicial System, 258 Effectiveness of Nonviolent Approaches, 6, 227 Effects of Childhood Abuse, 32, 273 Effects of Corporal Punishment, 3, 9, 21, 39, 41, 45, 47-48, 140, 187 Effects of Emotional Abuse, 187 Effects of Emotional Violence, 185 Effects of Incarceration, 70, 91, 93, 146, 151 Effects of Parental Spanking, 268 Effects of Punishment, 1, 3, 7-9, 11, 16, 20-21, 39, 41, 45, 47-48, 72, 94, 131, 135, 138, 140, 145, 150, 152, 187 Effects of Sensory Deprivation, 268 Ego Distortion, 276 Eighth Amendment, 119 Einsiedein, 268 Eissler, Kurt, 79, 266, 269 Eissler, Ruth, 79, 266, 269 Elgin, Suzette Haden, 87, 175, 222, 266

Emotional Abuse, 2-3, 5-6, 10, 16, 26, 31, 3437, 142, 175-178, 180-181, 185, 187-188, 194, 202, 220-222 Emotional Effects of Punishment, 8 Emotional Intelligence, 267 Emotional Numbness, 11-13, 30, 88 Empathy, 6, 11-16, 25, 48, 99, 188, 192, 208, 215, 218-219, 223-224 End Its Death Penalty, 269 Enlightenment, 193 Enright, Robert D., 253, 266 Erdmans, 268, 270 Erikson, Eric, 91-92, 149, 266 Erikson, Erik, 149, 266 Evaluation of Recent American Policies, 267 Evans, Patricia, 175-176, 178, 266 Evans, William N., 267 Experiences of Punishment Justified, 72, 264 Explicit Emotional Abuse, 10, 177 Exploit Inmates, 93 Exploitation, 81, 158, 205, 260 Exploring Senseless Acts of Violence, 267 Expressing Emotions, 217 Eyeful Account of Wrongful Executions, 272 Eyewitness Account, 272

F Facilitating Environment, 276 Facing Evil, 272 Factories of Crime, 2, 4, 69 Failure of Today, 73-74 Falkowski, Carol, 130, 267 False Ideas, 127, 139, 202, 260 False Self, 136, 276 Falwell, Jerry, 156 Family Characteristics, 274 Family Group, 6, 235, 238, 250-251, 265, 272 Family Group Conference, 238 Family Group Conferences, 6, 235, 238, 251 Family Group Conferencing, 250, 272 Family Group Decision Making, 265, 272 Family of Origin, 274 Family Psychology Review, 274 Family Research Laboratory, 274 Family Strain, 264

280

Index Family Violence, 43, 265, 271-272, 274 Family Violence Prevention Division, 272 Farnham, Elizabeth, 97, 100 FBI, 80 Fear of Autonomy, 268 Fear of Divine Punishment, 158 Fear of Punishment, 8, 130, 141, 158-160, 185 Federal Probation XII, 267 Feelings of Shame Impair Empathic Responses, 15 Fellner, Jamie, 67 Female Political Prisoners, 269 Feminism, 264 Festering, 98 Fields, Charles B., 267 Fierce Entanglements, 274 Flynn, Clifton P., 267 Folly of Shaming Sanctions, 21 Folsom Prison, 74 Forgiveness May Be Beneficial, 266 A Form of Covert Emotional Violence, 181 Foucault, Michel, 73, 82, 118, 151, 205, 255, 267 Frankenstein, 207 Freeman, Robert A., 72 French, Samuel, 268 Freud, Anna, 160 Friedman, Nancy: Friedman, 268 Fulbright Scholarship, 252 Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice, 276 Fundamentally Incompatible, 109-110 Future of Restorative Justice Approaches, 237 A Future Where Punishment Is Marginalized, 264

G Galloway, Bert, 268, 276 Galloway, Burt, 258, 267 Gandhi, Mahatma, 155 Gandhi, Mohandas, 227-229 Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, 264 Gang Fights, 60 Garfinkle, Harold, 267 Garland, David, 267 Garnett, Constance, 275 Gartin, Patrick R., 273 Gass, G. Z., 179, 267

Gear, Marcia, 197 Gear, Maria C., 267 General Deterrence of Drunk Driving, 267 Generating Indigenous Structures, 265 Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, 266 Gilligan, James, 12, 15, 24, 61-62, 72, 77, 81, 95-96, 98, 116, 128, 151, 267 Gipps, 98 Girard, René, 132, 267 Goebbels, Joseph, 230 Goldberg, Carl, 267 Goldberg, Herb, 181, 263 Goleman, Daniel, 15, 267 Good Health, 266 Goode, Wilson, 92 Goodheart, Arthur, 153 Goodman, Daniel, 267 Goodman, David, 267 Gordon, Leslie C., 274 Gorringe, Timothy J., 250, 267 Government Printing Office, 271 Government Services, 272 Graham, John D., 267 Grasmick, Harold G., 156, 268 Grassian, Stuart, 66, 268 Greven, Philip, 8, 14, 30, 187, 268 Greven, Phillip, 157, 159, 161 Griffith, Lee, 72, 268 Groupthink, 190, 269 Guilty of Mental Illness, 269 Gunnoe, Marjorie L., 46, 268

H Haag, Ernest Van Den, 133, 275 Haas, Kenneth C., 264, 268 Haley, John O., 258-259, 268 Halfway, 58, 63 Hamilton, Patrick, 179, 268 Hampton, Jean, 133-134, 268 Hanfstaengl, Ernst, 19 Hannum, Hunter, 268 Happy Nigger Days, 200 Hare, Robert, 3, 5-6, 29-30, 43, 47, 56, 92, 99, 106, 111-112, 120, 133, 139, 148, 166, 168, 178, 194, 200, 203, 208, 219-220, 229, 265266, 269-270 Harvard Injury Research Center, 171 Harvard School of Public Health, 171 Harvard University Press, 271

281

Crimes of Punishment Hate, 8, 11, 26, 99, 148, 198, 200, 228 Hatred, 11, 17, 55, 74, 78, 80-82, 91, 94, 114, 117-118, 129, 135, 137, 150, 152, 155, 177-178, 195, 198, 200, 252-254 Haviland, John, 275 Hawkins, Richard, 124 Hayes, L. M., 268 Healing Institutional Evil, 272 Healing Power of Forgiveness, 250, 252 Heine, Ralph W., 270, 275 Heterosexual, 61, 94 Hidden Meaning, 273 Hildegarde, 268 Hill, Melvyn A., 3-5, 51, 57, 129, 140, 171, 195, 200, 209, 211, 219, 229, 268-269 Hindus, 216 Hinton, W. Ladson, 268 History of Childhood Quarterly, 273 HMO Correctional Medical Services, 171 Hodgins, Sheilagh, 268 Hoffmann, Heinrich, 19 Hogen Rebellion, 260 Hollow Water, 237 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 117, 132, 268 Homicide, 44, 54, 60, 115, 123-124, 211, 271 Homosexual, 61-62 Hoover, J. Edgar, 80 Horton, Willie, 81 How People Change, 275 How Restorative Justice Works, 236 Howard Bilding Gill, 100, 265 Huling, Tracy, 200-201, 268 Human Rights Watch, 51-52, 67 Hylton, Wil S., 171, 268 Hyman, Irwin A., 49, 269 Hynes, Garrett, 103-104, 106, 110

I Ibsen, Henrik, 32, 187, 269 Iceman, 162 Idealization of Power, 184 Immigration Policy, 271 Impulsivity, 209 Incarceration Deter, 4, 145, 151 Inciardi, James A., 264, 268 Incontrovertible, 64 Inculcating Disturbing Emotions, 195 Indermaur, David, 149, 269 Individual Moral Responsibility, 195

Individual Who Is Harmed, 255 Indoctrination, 158, 276 Infallible Justice, 275 Ingraham, Edward, 264 Inmate, 7, 54, 58, 60-63, 73-74, 86-87, 92-95, 98, 101-102, 104, 129, 138, 170 Inmate Anderson, 98 Inmate Interests, 93 Inmate John Allen, 58 Inmate Sherrie Chapman, 170 Inmate Toussaint, 60-61 Inmates, 21, 51-54, 57-64, 66-67, 69, 74-75, 80-81, 86-87, 89, 91-95, 101-102, 106, 108, 116, 123-124, 128, 132, 138, 149-151, 166-167, 171, 198-199, 201, 205, 268, 272 Inside Lorton Central Prison, 72, 264 Instrument of Social Exclusion, 275 Interactional Dynamics of Graduate-Medical Training, 266 Intergenerational Transmission, 31, 33, 92, 190 Intergenerational Transmission of Emotional, 31 Internalized Punishment, 36 Interpretations of Distortions, 180 Interrogating, 219 Interrogation, 259, 266 Intimate Abuse, 271 Intimidate, 95, 185, 194 Investigation, 2, 44, 115, 203, 223 Investigations, 15, 24, 30, 41, 44-46, 64, 79, 125, 135, 142, 146, 156, 175-176 Invisible Forces, 276 Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence, 276 Invisible Post-Incarceration Punishments, 67

J Jacobson, Edith, 70, 269 Jails, 3, 30, 51-54, 56-57, 62, 70-71, 73-75, 89, 91, 109, 121, 166, 168-170, 172, 203, 259 Janis, Irving L., 190, 269 Jefferson, Thomas, 199 Jeffries, John, 72, 270 Johnson, Adelaide, 35, 79, 269 Johnson, Elmer H., 269 Jossey-Bass, 269-270, 273 Judicious Use of Shame Penalties, 269

282

Index Just Vengeance, 267

K Kahan, Dan M., 20-21, 23, 269 Kanapoux, William, 269 Karp, D. R., 269 Keller, Julie C., 269 Kelley, M., 264 Kifner, John, 269 Kimpel, Lou, 156, 268 King, Martin Luther, 155, 200, 216-217, 227228, 230 Kohn, Melvin L., 45, 269 Kohut, Heinz, 17, 186, 269-270 Kortin, David C., 270 Kramer, Marc, 112, 270, 272 Ku Klux Klan, 200 Kupers, Ted, 199 Kupers, Terry A., 270

L Lack of Awareness, 5, 195 Laing, R. D., 180, 270 Lalich, Janja, 273 Lambert, William W., 157, 270 Lane, Allen, 273 Langs, Robert, 87, 222, 270 Language of Compassion, 273 Language of Power, 275 Lanham, 266 Last Resort, 139 Leeber, Frances, 264 Legal Reform, 271 Legalization of Prostitution, 272 Leigh Minturn Triandis, 270 Levin, Harry, 273 Liendo, Ernesta C., 197, 267 Life Cycle, 266 Life Threatening Behavior, 263 Lifton, Robert, 14, 270 Limitations of Prison Reform, 4, 97 Lin, Kuei-Hsiu, 274 Lincoln, Abraham, 275 Long Walk, 270 Longitudinal Study of Two Age Cohorts, 274

Lorton Central Prison, 58, 62, 72-74, 132, 138, 264 Loss of Empathy, 11-14 Loss of Empathy Contributes, 14 Loss of Freedom, 152, 202 Love of Enemy, 275 Low, Peter, 72, 270 Low-Income Communities, 265 Lundin, Robert, 152, 270 Luther, Martin, 137, 155, 200, 216-217, 227228, 230, 266 Lynds, Elam, 64

M Maccoby, Eleanor C., 45, 273 Maconochie, Alexande, 97-100 Made, 2, 18, 20, 23, 26, 32, 35, 38, 45, 50, 55, 59, 67, 69-70, 77, 82, 89-90, 105-106, 108, 110, 116-117, 121, 132-133, 160, 163, 166-167, 179, 181, 186, 188-189, 194, 198, 205, 209210, 216, 219, 224, 239, 254 Madhouse, 263 Making Crime Pay, 264 Making Family Group Conferencing Work, 272 Making of Modern Japan, 264 Makkai, Toni, 270 Male Aggression Toward Partners, 271 Male Dating Violence, 274 Malevolence, 16, 171, 266, 270 Mamali, Catalin, 217, 270 Mandela, Nelson, 122, 198, 217, 228, 270 Manning, Steve, 121 Mantel, Hilary, 113, 270 Mariner, Carrie Z., 268 Marshall, Christopher, 73, 151, 249, 270 Marshall, Christopher D., 73, 151, 270 Mason, Mark, 92 Mass Incarceration, 2, 54, 56-58, 99-100, 169-170, 199-201, 271-272 Massachusetts Correctional, 100 Mastery Over People, 184-185, 275 Mattoon, Mary Ann, 268 Mauer, Marc, 265, 268, 270-272, 274-275 MCC Canada Victim Offender Ministries Program, 271 MCC U. S. Office of Criminal Justice, 271 McCormick, K. F., 40, 270 McCoys, 29

283

Crimes of Punishment McVicar, John, 92 Meanings of Crime, 266 Medical Killing, 270 Medway, F. J., 271 Menninger, Karl, 2, 70, 107, 152, 271 Menninger, William, 107 Mental, 3-4, 11, 13, 17, 39-41, 47, 49, 51-57, 63-66, 69, 74, 80, 106-107, 127-128, 131, 135-136, 140, 176, 178-180, 182-183, 187, 189-190, 195-196, 197, 266, 268-270, 272 Mental Disorders, 52, 57, 66, 69, 74, 266, 272 Mental Health, 11, 39-41, 49, 51, 53, 64, 74, 131, 136, 140, 176, 178, 182, 189-190, 197, 268, 270, 272 Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars, 270 Mental Hospital Reform, 106-107 Mental-health, 24, 44, 79, 106-108 Mentally Ill, 36, 51-53, 56-57, 66, 107, 128 Mercy, 31, 114, 123, 259, 272 Metacommunications, 183 Mika, Harold, 276 Miller, Teresa A., 271 Mills, Linda G., 271 Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment, 273 Milwaukee Experiment, 273 Minister of Public Works, 272 Misconceptions, 139 Montefiore Rikers Island Health Services, 199 Montgomery, Reid H., 271 Moore, Cynthia, 24, 271 Moral Argument, 112-113, 125, 134, 136 Moral Debt, 256-257 Moral Education Theory of Punishment, 134 Moral Justification, 4, 24, 127, 190 Morgan, Edmund S., 271 Morgan, Marie, 124, 271 Morris, Allison, 271 Morris, Norval, 145, 271 Morrow, William, 274 Moslem, 29 Mossaro, T. M., 271 Most Popular Religion, 161 Most Trusted Child-Care Expert, 274 Motives, 4, 118-119, 178, 265 Moule, C. F. C., 250, 271 Moule, C. F. D., 250

Murder Victims Families, 123 Murderers, 75, 98, 116, 120, 123, 153, 266 Murton, Thomas, 97, 102 Mussen, P. H., 272 Mutual Welfare League, 101-102 Myth of Redemptive Violence, 137, 157, 161163, 192, 231 Myth of Redemptive Violence Is Internalized, 162

N Narcissism, 267, 270 Narcissistic Rage, 17, 270 Narcotics Anonymous, 58 National Advisory Commission, 70, 271 National Coalition, 265 National Congress, 109 National Data, 274 National Epidemic, 267 National Family Violence Survey, 43 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 267 National Opinion Research Center, 40 National Study of Jail Suicides, 268 National Survey of Male Adolescents, 264 Nazi(s), 14, 56, 230, 270 Negative Group Identity, 4, 91-92, 94, 96, 148-149 Negative Identity, 4, 71, 78, 91-92, 94, 96, 148-149 Neither Passivity, 275 Neville, Doreen, 267 New Abolitionism, 119 New Focus, 276 A New Form of Nonpunitive Justice, 6, 233 New Mexico Penitentiary, 60 New Zealand Maori, 236 Nichols, N. W., 179 Nichols, W. C., 267 Nickles, Laura B., 265 Nicklin, Philip, 264 Niederland, William, 26, 271 Nixon, Richard, 81 Nobel Peace Prize, 234 Non-criminals, 79, 98-99, 130 Non-domination, 235 Nonretaliation, 275 Nonverbal Communication, 86, 136, 176177, 183, 215, 217

284

Index Nonviolence Versus, 231 Nonviolent, 1-3, 5-6, 11, 16, 31, 38, 39-40, 4849, 57-58, 62, 76, 97, 105, 107, 128, 137-138, 142-143, 153, 155-156, 168, 172, 192, 215225, 227-232, 234-235, 263, 273 Nonviolent Approach, 5-6, 49, 105, 215-216, 218, 221, 231, 235 A Nonviolent Approach, 6, 215-216 Nonviolent Modes of Discipline, 48 Nonviolent Responses, 220 Normative Support, 40, 267 Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, 170 Northwestern University, 121 Norton, W. W., 266, 272 Nozick, Robert, 119, 271 Nussbaum, Martha C., 132, 272

O Olson, Mark, 73, 272 Ornstein, Paul H., 270 Osborne, Thomas M., 71, 97, 101-102, 198199 Other Methods of Covert Control, 266

P Paine, Thomas, 216 Paranoid Personality, 271 Parenting, 141, 274 Parents, 10, 14-15, 25-26, 34-37, 39-50, 79, 109, 133-137, 139-142, 157, 159, 177, 186, 194, 196, 223, 237, 252, 264, 274 Parisky, Yuri, 170 Park, Ross, 30, 272 Paschall, Mollie J., 274 Patterns of Child Rearing, 273 Paul, Daniel, 26 Peck, M. Scott, 272 Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 268 Pelz, Mary, 272 Penal Institutions, 51-52, 54, 56, 70, 75, 89, 103, 107, 109, 168-170 Penal Reform, 271 Penitentiary, 60, 72, 109, 264, 268 Penitentiary System, 264 Pennell, Joan, 265, 272 Personality Theory, 270 Pew Forum, 158

Pharris, Maggie, 224 Physical Abuse, 6, 10, 15-16, 26, 30-31, 34-36, 39, 41-42, 166, 171, 175, 177, 221, 235, 268 Pierce, Glenn L., 264 Politics of Crime, 266 Pollock, Joycelyn M., 272 Porter, Anthony, 121 Portsmouth Naval Prison, 102 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, 11-12, 16, 186 Powelson, Harvey, 108-109, 272 Power of Nonviolent Approaches, 224 Prejean, Helen, 86, 113, 115, 272 Preventing Violence, 31, 224 Prison, Walla Walla, 105-106 Prison Abolition, 268 Prison Economy, 268 Prison Reform, 2, 4, 86, 97, 99-101, 103, 106107, 265 Prison Reforms, 69, 97, 100-103, 110, 198 Prison Reforms of Elizabeth Farnham, 100 Prison Reforms of Howard Bilding Gill, 100 Prison Reforms of Thomas Mott Osborne, 101 Prison Reforms of Thomas Murton, 102 Prison Reforms of William R. Conte, 103 Prison Relationships Foster, 91 Prison System, 2, 5, 52, 65-66, 69, 77, 80, 9192, 99, 101, 139, 190, 191, 193-194, 197-199, 201-202, 205, 208, 211 Prison-Crime Relationship, 265 Prison-Industrial Complex, 5, 199-201 Prisonization, 4, 93-94, 96, 148-149, 275 Prisons Are Dangerous Places, 59, 75 Prisons Are Factories of Crime, 4, 69 Process of Criminalization of Prisoners, 85 Processes of Criminalization, 4, 93, 148 Property Crime, 43 Proponents of VORP, 257 Protecting Children, 265 Protess, David, 121 Protestant Fundamentalism, 156, 268 Protestant Larry Christianson, 157 Psychiatric, 3-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 16, 20, 25-26, 31, 48, 51-54, 56-57, 60, 63, 66, 75, 89, 106-109, 136, 166-171, 179-180, 184-186, 188, 195-196, 197, 200, 208, 266, 268-269 Psychiatric Seclusion, 268

285

Crimes of Punishment Psychiatric Treatment, 16, 52-53, 56, 106, 108-109, 167, 170-171, 197 Psychic, 5, 9-12, 25, 27, 53, 63, 99, 134, 169, 175, 182, 184-187, 195, 254 Psychic Damage, 10, 63, 134, 169, 175, 182, 184, 187, 195 Psychoanalysis, 19, 32, 36, 41, 90, 139-140, 158, 186, 264, 266 Psychoanalysts, 12, 74, 85, 89-90, 96, 114, 179, 187, 197 Psychoanalytic, 3, 7, 13, 36-37, 85, 90, 160, 180, 189, 196, 221, 253, 265, 269, 271 Psychoanalytic Perspective, 3, 7 Psychoanalytic Profile, 271 Psychological, 2-3, 5, 7, 9-10, 21, 25-26, 31, 41-42, 51, 54, 64, 91, 107, 131, 139, 143, 162, 170, 185-186, 195, 201-202, 253, 256, 260, 266, 268-269, 271-272 Psychological Effect of Imprisonment, 269 Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, 268 Psychological Slave, 25-26 Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions, 269 Psychology, 196, 265, 270-274 Psychology of Genocide, 270 Psychopathological Effects of Solitary Confinement, 268 Psychosocial Processes of Prisonization, 93, 148-149 Psychotherapists, 179-180 Psychotherapy, 33, 35-36, 41, 90, 104-105, 107, 139, 158, 266, 273 Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia, 273 Public Awareness of Individual Versus Corporate Crimes, 212 Public Life, 158 Public Policy, 114, 271 Public-education, 58 Punishment Is Shaming, 20 Punishment Versus Psychiatry, 108 Punishments, 1, 4, 12, 21-22, 27, 49, 51, 58, 61, 67-68, 69, 71, 74-75, 83, 93-94, 98, 100, 127, 148, 153, 157, 161, 190, 202, 204, 264 Punitive, 1, 3, 5-6, 16, 23, 25, 27, 31, 36-38, 45, 48, 52-53, 55-56, 58-60, 64, 72, 74, 80, 89, 96, 97, 99-100, 104-110, 130, 133, 137138, 156-157, 159-160, 169-170, 172-173, 187, 194-195, 198, 215, 218, 233, 236, 238-239, 252, 254, 256, 259-261

Purnell, Macdonald, 270

R Racial, 67, 78, 82, 113, 115, 120, 177, 200, 203, 216, 234 Racism, 53, 56, 60, 81, 120, 149, 169, 172, 200, 229 Raha, John, 57-58 Rape, 4, 21, 51, 61-63, 75, 81, 95, 129, 149, 186, 236, 250, 255 Razan, Dennis P., 273 Reagan, Ronald, 81 Reconciliation Commission, 234, 251 Reform Movement, 103, 105-107 Reformatory Discipline, 109 Regulatory Standards, 270 Rehabilitation, 3-4, 55-56, 59, 69, 75, 93, 9798, 100, 103-104, 108-110, 127, 134, 138-139, 148, 153, 169, 198, 259 Reintegrative Shaming, 22-23, 270 Rejection, 20, 22-23, 32, 78, 80, 88, 93, 100, 148, 150, 182, 274 Relational Perspective, 4, 16, 85, 96 Relationships Between Religion, 5, 155 Religious Roots of Punishment, 268 Religious Studies, 274 Research School of Social Sciences, 270 Researchers Offer Merits of Spirituality, 269 Resolving Anger, 266 Resolving Family Violence, 265 Restoration, 233, 250-251, 269 Restorative Justice Approaches, 6, 138, 173, 233, 235-237, 239 Restorative Justice Movement, 16, 138, 233, 249 Restorative Messages, 271 Restorative-justice, 6, 23 Restoring Hope, 266 Retard Cognitive Development, 47 Rethinking, 271 Retribution, 4, 20, 111, 116-119, 125, 127, 132133, 138-139, 249-250, 252, 254, 259, 270271 Retributive, 3, 6, 118, 133, 235-236, 249, 254-257, 260 Retributive Justice, 3, 6, 118, 236, 249, 254257, 260

286

Index Revenge, 4, 8, 11, 17, 76, 77, 80, 94, 116-119, 122-123, 129, 132-133, 195, 249, 251, 259 Rhetoric of Salvation, 267 Richie, Beth E., 169-170, 272 Rider, Ghost, 162 Rigid Character, 273 Rikers Island, 199 Rinehart, 265 Rio, L. M., 147, 272 Ritual, 78, 95, 132 Roadrunner, 162 Robertson, Pat, 156 Robinson, P. H., 265 Rockefeller, Nelson, 81 Role of Shame, 16, 77, 271 Roman Catholic Church, 158 Roman Empire, 156, 192 Rose, Arnold M., 272 Rosenberg, Marshall B., 133, 135, 217-220, 222-223, 273 Rosenstrasse Wives, 230 Ross, Lawrence H., 30, 130, 272-273 Rule of Law, 276 Rural America, 200-201, 268 Rural Prisons, 200-201 Ryan, George, 115, 121-124, 267, 273

S Sacred, 132, 267 Sadism, 25, 86, 99, 106 Sadistic, 26, 35, 86, 102, 109, 137 Salvation, 158-159, 163, 267 Sanctions, 2, 21, 130, 145-148, 151-153, 258, 269 Sarat, Austin, 116, 118-119, 128-129, 273 Sargeant, William Walters, 273 Saving Lives, 210, 273 Saving Souls, 158 Scalia, Anthony, 158 Scapegoat, 32, 77-80, 272 Scapegoating, 4, 23, 56, 68, 77-80, 82-83, 150, 195 Scapegoating of Prisoners, 4, 77, 150 Scapegoats of Society, 266 Schatzman, Morton, 26, 273 Scheber, 26 Schmidt, Janell D., 273 Schreber, Daniel Gottlieb Moritz, 26 Schreber, Daniel Paul, 26

Schreber Case, 271, 273 Schuster, 274, 276 Searles, Harold, 180, 273 Sears, Robert R., 273 Serious Misbehavior, 141 Seven Key Characteristics of Social Systems of Domination, 194 Sexualized, 16 Shame Inculcation, 3, 16, 20, 23, 31, 80, 95, 181, 188, 194-195, 206 Shame of Punishment Inhibit Wrongdoing, 24 Shapiro, David, 27, 273 Shaw, George Bernard, 110, 131, 138-139, 146, 212, 273 She-Hulk, 162 Shelton, 200 Shengold, Leonard, 32, 187, 273 Sheridan, Alan, 267 Sherman, Lawrence W., 94, 99, 146-149, 151-153, 273 Shocking Level of Failure, 70 Siblings, 32-33, 35, 43, 187, 221, 237 Simmons, John, 268, 272-273 Simons, Ronald L., 47, 274 A Sin Against, 274 Sing Sing Prison, 61, 85, 101 Singer, Margaret Thaler, 273 Sixth International Family Violence Research Conference, 274 Skolnick, Andrew A., 274 Slaby, Ronald, 30, 272 Slavery System, 5, 199, 201-202 Smircic, J. M., 271 Smith, Barbara E., 265 Smith, Douglas A., 273 Social Impact of Mass Incarceration, 272 Social Injustice, 236 Social Justice, 236-237, 264 Social Order, 176, 267 Social Policy, 273 Social Practice, 270 Social Psychology, 196, 265, 270 Social Science Approaches, 264, 268 Social Systems of Domination, 5, 189, 191, 194-196, 208 Social Work Department, 238 Socialization, 48, 93, 130, 274 Sociological Research, 272 Sociopathology, 5, 193-196, 197

287

Crimes of Punishment Socrates, 155, 228 Solitary Confinement, 52, 64, 169, 268 Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection, 265 Some Communicative Properties, 270 Sontag, Deborah, 274 Spank Their Children When They Misbehave, 143 Spank Verbally Abuse Their Children, 142 Spanking, 9-10, 20, 39-41, 44-45, 49-50, 109, 135-136, 139-143, 152, 157, 194, 196, 221, 268-269 Spanking Causes No Harm, 139 Spanking Is More Effective, 139 Spanking Is Required, 139 Speer, Albert, 19 Spiritual Advisor, 113 Spock, Benjamin, 40, 187-188, 274 Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 266 Step-by-Step Process, 266 Stereotypes, 274 Stern, Vivien, 37, 59, 187, 274 Stewart, Julie H., 274 Stick, Hickory, 269 Strang, Heather, 271-272, 274 Straus, Murray A., 41-46, 139-140, 142, 271, 274 Sullivan, 211 Sunnier, Patrick, 113 Superman Family, 162 Supermaximum, 51, 53, 63-67 Supermaximum-custody, 4, 63 Supermaximum-Custody Prisons, 4, 63 Supreme Court, 120, 158, 207 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 158 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 207 Surgeon General, 50 Sussman, Peter, 55, 274 Swartley, Willard M., 275 Syndrome, Marital, 267 Szurek, Stanislaus A., 35, 269

T Talbot, Margaret, 274 Talbot, Thomas, 274 Tangney, June Price, 15, 22-25, 274 Tannen, Deborah, 175, 274 Teenage Violence Toward Parents, 264

Television Evokes Violence, 30 Terrorism, 146, 272 Testo, Tom, 108 The Anatomy of Disgust, 269 The Argument of Fairness, 119 The Common Law, 268 The Crime of Imprisonment, 273 The Crime of Punishment, 2, 70, 152, 271 The Culture of Control, 267 The Cycle of Violence, 3, 29-31, 35-36, 38, 123, 129, 234-235, 251, 256, 275 The Death of Innocents, 113, 272 The Death Penalty, 3-4, 98, 111-116, 119-125, 129-130, 132-133, 155-156, 158, 191, 194, 264, 272, 275 The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment During, 263 The Development of Aggression, 272 The Effects of Corporal Punishment, 3, 21, 39, 41, 45, 47, 187 The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, 269, 271-272, 275-276 The Gandhian Experience, 270 The Genesis of Antisocial Acting Out, 269 The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, 266 The Great American Crime Myth, 276 The Impact of Mass Incarceration, 271 The Impact of Two-Day Jail Sentences, 267 The Inculcation of Shame, 3, 16, 20, 31, 80, 95, 181, 188, 194-195, 206 The International Aspect of U. S. Policies, 274 The Irrational Doctrine of Immaculate Execution, 116 The Limitations of Prison Reform, 4, 97 The Listening Process, 270 The Manipulated Mind, 276 The Mask of Shame, 276 The Maturational Processes, 276 The Meanings of Shame, 271 The Mental Health of Penitentiary Inmates, 268 The Mikado, 211 The Moral Education Theory, 127-128, 134, 136 The Moral Educative Theory of Punishment, 134, 268 The Myth of Redemptive Violence, 137, 157, 161-163, 192, 231 The Nazi Doctors, 270

288

Index The Prison Community, 94, 265 The Process of Criminalizing Prisoners, 4 The Progressive Era, 69, 265 The Shame Response, 20, 274 The SHU Syndrome, 66, 268 The Social Impact of Mass Incarceration, 272 The Sociopathology, 5, 193-196, 197 The Strong-Willed Child, 266 The Total Degradation Ceremony, 95 The Type C Mode of Communication, 8689, 222, 266 The Variable Effects of Arrest, 273 The Verbally Abusive Relationship, 266 Theology, 266, 269, 275 Theories of Deterrence, 4, 131, 145 Thomas, Chris, 122 Thomas, Herbert E., 274 Thompson, 9 Three Strikes, 55, 81-82, 100, 203, 266 Toch, Hans, 64, 274 Toland, John, 274 Tolstoy, Leo, 217, 254, 275 Tonry, Michael, 21, 23, 83, 151, 264, 275 Training of Correction Officers, 108 Transdisciplinary Research, 270 Transportation Security Administration, 194, 264 Trauma, 5, 9-12, 14, 16-17, 20, 25, 53, 63, 136137, 160, 166, 185-186, 188, 195, 253-254, 256, 266, 270 Travis, Jeremy, 68, 275 True, Terms of, 276 Truth Commission, 234, 251 Tucker Prison Farm, 102 Turow, Scott, 115, 275 Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, 234, 251

U Union Army General William T. Sherman, 99 US Criminal Justice System, 21 Use Corporal Punishment Among School Administrators, 271

V Vachss, Andrew, 275

Vagg, J., 275 Van Fleet, James K., 275 Variable Effects of Arrest, 273 Vengeance, 99, 110, 117-119, 132, 139, 152, 157, 249, 254, 267 Vicious Cycles of Violence, 30 Victim Offence Reconciliation Program, 257 Victim Offender Reconciliation Program, 257 Victims of Crime, 254-255 Violence of Emotional Abuse, 220 Violence of Prison Rape, 61 Violence Toward Youth, 265 Violent Behavior, 30, 53, 73, 125, 152, 267 Violent Crime, 43, 47-48

W Washington, Booker T., 117 Washington, George, 199 Washington Correctional Center, 200 Weinshel, Edward, 179, 265 Weinshel, Edward M., 265 Welsch, Michael, 275 Wepman, Joseph M., 270, 275 Wesley, Charles, 159 Wesley, John, 158-160, 184-185 Wesley, Susanna, 159 Wheelis, Allen, 25, 275 White, Betsy, 275 Widom, Cathy Spatz, 275 Williams, Patricia, 158, 275 Wilson, Pete, 81-83 Wink, Walter, 71, 92, 156, 162, 191, 227, 231, 275-276 Winn, Denise, 276 Winn, H. Richard, 203 Winnicott, Donald W., 276 Wolf, Margery, 270 Wolf, Robert, 117, 276 Women Inmates, 63, 272 Women Offenders Need, 172 Woodruff, P., 272 Working Through Narcissism, 267 World of Domination, 275 Worthington, Everett, 253 Wright, Kevin, 276 Wright, Martin, 268, 276 Wurmser, Leon, 187, 276

289


Y

Z Zehr, Howard, 276

Young, Vernetta D., 276

290

Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence

Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence

Among the Lowest of the Dead: The Culture of Capital Punishment (Law, Meaning, and Violence)

States of Violence: War, Capital Punishment, and Letting Die

Violence, Culture And Censure

Punishment Of Apollo

Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the UK

Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women

The Abuses of Punishment

Crimes of Christianity

The Problem of Punishment

The Problem of Punishment

The Problem of Punishment

Crimes of Love

Crimes of Love

The Punishment of Nicollet

Punishment

Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South

Defense of the Americas

The Crimes of England

Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture (International Library of Sociology)

Punishment

Cruel And Unusual: Punishment and U.S. Culture

The Crimes of Lady Fowlis

The Echo of Violence

The Anatomy of Violence

The Creed of Violence

Theories of Civil Violence

The Meanings of Violence

Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence

Wine of Violence

Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence